


Hell will Follow

by Nazareth_Rose



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alien Mythology/Religion, Alien Rituals, Alien Romance, Alien Technology, Based Off of Childhood Memories from Visiting These Places, Bethany Beach, Bisexuality, Civil War, D.C. Area, Delmarva, Discrimination, Family, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gearl, Gem Discrimination, Gem Fusion, Gem Segregation, Gem-Human War, Greg Is Bi, Greg x Pearl, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, Maryland, New Gem War, Ocean City, Pearl x Greg, Political Alliances, Politics, Polski | Polish, Post-Gem War, Rehoboth Beach, Science, Science Fiction, Second Gem War, Segregation, Slavic Culture, Spinel Dies, Steven Marries Connie, Steven Universe Timeskip, Steven is 18, Stevonnie - Freeform, U. S. East Coast, Violence Against Gems, War, Yeah spinel fucking dies, alien discrimination, alien segregation, delaware - Freeform, east coast, more tags in the future as the story unfolds, poor fucking lapis, preg, rupphire, sci fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-13 00:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 175,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21485128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nazareth_Rose/pseuds/Nazareth_Rose
Summary: My vision for a prospective Seasons 6-10 of Steven Universe, beginning two years after he takes his road trip in Steven Universe:Future, all condensed  to a 300,000-word work  of fiction. Enjoy!
Comments: 21
Kudos: 32





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I changed the title. "When an Imposter Dies" is now "Hell Will Follow".  
I’m relatively new to this fandom, having only been introduced to SU when the movie came out, so I probably won’t have everything right. However, I’m learning more and more every day. Please be patient with me.  
I aim to finish around November of 2022 (ironically, when the bulk of the story's events take place), although I have no guarantees.  
Why 2022, you ask, when I’d normally finish a fic in a month? Well, this is a pretty damn ambitious writing project. Not only am I sketching out the plot of the next four seasons of Steven Universe, I’m also trying to fit that plot into a 300,000 word-long story. Which, if you read even the first chapter, is harder than you think. Conflicts escalate when they really shouldn’t be escalating, although I’ve tried to weave these conflicts into a natural part of the story. Technically, if I wrote for 16 hours a day nonstop, 7 days a week, I could have this thing done in a day and a half, but I am a human, and I have family, culture, illness, travel, school, and lots of other things in my life. (Plus, my hands might fall off.)  
Oh, well. I’m trying my best as a writer, and will always try to improve.  
With no further ado, let’s get on to the story.
> 
> Also, I did see Future, by all means, and still sore that the entire show is over. I continue to be amazed at the sheer amount of effort put into analysis and fanworks of the show.  
What happened in Future is the canon events of what happened two years before this fanfic (Steven is eighteen here). But this does not mean in the slightest that this is the canon sequel to Future. This is my specific vision, not an adaptation of the actual show.

"You gonna leave me alone?"  
There wasn't any response. It could've been the deafening crowds, Spinel supposed, going once or twice over the irony that before, the reason was that there was no one at all. It could've been the noises of the ship.  
Or it could have been the unhearable noise that comes with settling back home. That became louder and louder with every step the Diamonds took to heading back to their shared and unashamedly luxe kitchen. Spinel ended up having to jump up, in a second-heartbeat, to one of the decorative juttings from the wall that looked like an unused Christmas tree spike. The Diamonds were laughing like older women with a bottle of champion and two or so life stories, and that's when Spinel said it.  
"You gonna leave me alone?"  
The black was dripping, Spinel discovered, from her eyes. She saw what felt like tar drip and drop onto her boots. Her head burned, as it tended to do every now and then whenever people walked this far from her.  
Could it be that the Diamonds were helping her already? That couldn’t be right. If that were right, then her head wouldn’t be seeming to burn her like this. And her body wouldn’t be threatening to fall off of the spike.  
But how could it be that the Diamonds weren’t helping her? They’d already took her in, revealed to her their unconditional love, stretched out their hands and watched as she bounded her way across them, one by one. She wasn’t on the streets, like too many Gems were on this planet. In fact, she was in the most sumptuous building in the planet. On the planet. How was it, then that she-  
One of the Diamonds moved to the left. The light shifted. Her boot was immaculate.  
She couldn’t control herself. It was an instinct. She struck one of her hands against the spike, listened as it reverberated to the back walls, came back to her ears.  
It went unheard. She went unheard. She was too small.  
She couldn’t take sitting here. She used her scythe as a climbing spur, made her way down, and ran to the kitchen.  
Two minutes passed by before the Diamonds noticed her.  
“What is it?” White asked. All of a sudden, the weight of interruption settled its way on Spinel’s shoulders.  
“It’s… it’s just that…” Six thousand years of emotion. How much of a lunacy it was that it could be unfettered when she needed it to stay in its cage, and stayed shy in there whenever she needed it out with her. So she sputtered out the first thing she could.  
“I was noticing the people outside. Some of them don’t look too happy.”  
“There’s always people that are unhappy.” Blue this time, before she went to get herself one cozy object or another. So many things Spinel was exposed to. So many new things, yet ancient things. So many things even she, who understood fully how the Injector worked, couldn’t even begin to decide.  
“I know, but something tells me that they’re all not happy for the same reason.”  
Yellow paused. At least Spinel understood something. Something about this political tangle of wires and thorns. Something about this life.  
“I know.” White.  
And White knew exactly the reason why they were unhappy, although that was a conglomeration of lots of different reasons, reasons they weren’t allowed to be unhappy about. At least in Steven’s eyes, everything was almost perfect...almost. They’d dismantled their armies, stopped their colonization, completely dismantled the caste system.  
Free speech. Free speech, so rampant, including protests, was the problem, at least in the Diamonds’ eyes. White and the other Diamonds, albeit about two or three thousand years ago, had made law upon law that resulted in protest upon protest nowadays, although, like crying children after being handed a piece of candy, they were quickly shut up. The candy had been pleading, promises, and one clandestine demonstration that would terrify Spinel should she decide to ask what happened during it. But that was besides the point. And the laws were almost a religion, seeping into their homes like the rain that only seemed to happen to the poorly-designed roofs on Rose’s former colony. The rain was good, some said. The rain was sweet, kept them alive. But some claimed they were drowning.  
No romantic relationships. That would be an abomination, and besides, none of them could procreate. Weren’t long lifespans and former Kindergartens enough for them? If they wanted to write their own books, they could’ve at least made them reasonable and not sneak in ideas that would lead them to another war. And unless there was a war, or if one’s job was strenuous, there was no use for wearing garments that didn’t take after the Diamonds’ flowing skirts and dresses...what would be the use for them?  
Before Blue was finished with getting whatever object Spinel couldn’t decipher, there was the sound of a single knock, the door’s wood splitting.  
It was instinctual. No friend would knock that way. Either it was an enemy, or hundreds of them, which is what the last of the protests turned out to be.  
Yellow and Blue let out a few colorful words in the planet’s own language before grabbing their weapons, and, before White could get a closer look at what was happening outside the heartily-decorated window, Spinel had already scoped out that there were at least 150 people here.  
“150?” Charm made a little dance across White’s face. And it was also the first time Spinel had seen her smile since they had both stepped in the door.  
It slipped away just as White called for reinforcements, and when the door burst and a thousand and five hundred other Gems Spinel’s size all fought their way inside, all of hel broke loose. Spinel did her own part in keeping back the other Gems, but that was before she looked to her right.  
One of the guards clubbed one of the Gems on the head. She fell back, shuddered, and lay still.  
“Stop!”  
No one heard Spinel, just as before. She shoved off one of the Gems trying to get in. It was only when Spinel was on the floor with a shiner that she discovered the Gem was a Bismuth.  
That did it. She couldn’t play this game anymore- some words that ruminated in her head every so often. She blew her horn, and the sound of it caused the Bismuth to kneel screaming, hands over her ears, and those close to her to run. All the rest seemed to be paralyzed. The guards doled out a few glancing blows, but that was all. It echoed across the constantly-scrubbed, crystalline walls of the home, creating a horn of its own.  
The place was silent.  
“No one else needs to get hurt.”  
For a few seconds, there was only the noise of a few ships taking off, of the humming of generators outside.  
Yellow stooped down, picked her up so forcefully her neck made a popping noise. “And just what do you think you’re doing?! You think you can just infringe on a diplomatic operation like this because you don’t want them to get hurt? They were going to storm into our home, kill us all! Do you have a better idea?!”  
“Go to Earth!”  
“Excuse me?!”  
“Go to Earth. Everyone.”  
That was all Yellow needed. She squeezed Spinel enough to make her arms pop a little this time, but not enough to be visible. White lay a hand on her shoulder.  
Yellow took a breath. It released in the cold wind, released to the constant flow of minerals.  
“Tell me. What do you mean?”  
And Spinel told her, and only her, quietly, about how Earth was safe and how she was a friend of Steven’s. She didn’t elaborate; anything else would be speaking badly of Homeworld, and that would be very bad for her.  
Yellow took a breath. Another. Another. Then, White, reading Yellow like the storybook she’d had so meticulously handmade, golf foil strewing the floor it was made above, called off the guards. And the crowd, seeming to read the four like the hovergrams- not quite holograms- that were there books, slowly, slowly, dropped back home.  
The door was very quickly replaced by one of the palace workers, and by the time Spinel was kicked off to the side, although no one had told her to go, off to look out of the window on her own, off to see the crowds as they went home, off to see every single thing she had missed for such a gut-wrenchingly long period of time.  
And it was that period of time the Diamonds had to get used to, even if they did joke on it back when they were on Rose's former colony.  
"Spinel."  
It was Blue. Spinel turned. The blackness was still on her eyes.  
"Spinel, deary, you've been sitting there for twenty minutes, not saying a word. Wasn't there something you wanted to add?"  
"Add to what?"  
"Let me take you there."  
And Spinel was twenty feet tall. She looked to her left, then her right, in order to see if the fingers on her palm would close in. When they never did, Spinel still went with unease onto the over-half-a-million-carat dining room table.  
White and Yellow's heads were in their hands for two very different reasons. White was very, very tired. Yellow was the kind of disappointed Spinel imagined Pink to be if she were to ever come back…  
Spinel did what she was, at least in part, made to do. She broke the tension, and a poorly time-joke left her mouth. Yellow chuckled for three or four seconds, although she seemed a little regretful a few seconds later.  
Blue. “Before any of you say anything, it bears mentioning that migrating to other planets is entirely legal.”  
“It’s too fresh.” Yellow rubbed her thumb and forefinger together.  
White lifted her head from her hands, thoughts pushing on her shoulder blades, and pressed both palms to the table. “It still stands.”  
White paused for a few more seconds. No one dared to interrupt her. Blue even thought for a minute she was Spinel’s height, and then realized she’d had her own head plopped on the table.  
White again. “Blue, Yellow...Spinel...look at our resources. What stands out to you about them?”  
“Allocation and more allocation. Stood out to me during the war, stands out to me now. And it seems like we’re running out, despite us not needing nearly as much as the inhabitants of, hrmm,...her former colony.”  
“Despite.” “Allocation.” “Inhabitants.” Spinel nodded at Yellow, despite there not being anything for her to look at that White showed. It felt so great to be learning, or at least hearing, something new.  
Another pause. Spinel fiddled with her gloves, although it took her scuffling her boots along the table to bring everyone to attention again.  
“It bears mentioning that migrating to other planets is entirely legal,” Blue repeated.  
“And I’m Steven’s friend. I’d think it’s what he’d want, too.”  
A longer pause.  
Only a few minutes later was the verdict reached, and only a few seconds later was the order published to the public. The first part of the first paragraph read something like this:  
“We, the Monarchs of this great and salubrious planet , hereby endorse and highly encourage migration to the planet of Earth, located in the Nyunai Hery Galaxy, affectionately dubbed ‘The Milky Way’ by its inhabitants. Further information on its location, as well as its biological bypass combination, can be found in the latter half of this statement. In order to make preparations before migrating this planet, we highly encourage you to test for any diseases you may carry on you or your person before you go any further, as you....”  
At first, it was small. But as the conversation between the three Diamonds started again about some trivial topic or another, as Spinel, bored and tossed away again, made her way to the Diamonds’ launchpad in order to say one last goodbye to Steven before finding an area to settle in, the ships prepared, in more and more numbers, to leave Homeworld. All in all, 7 million would leave to settle in the United States alone. Most went near Little Homeworld, off of the East Coast of the United States, but the braver ones chose to take a newer path. Those settled in the desert to the west, some farther north, and only very little to the south. Most acclimated to human homes, but the craftier or formerly higher-classed ones built ones of their own. The whole process took about a few months in Earth time. All normal for Gems.  
And it was then that all hel broke loose.


	2. Season 6, Chapter 1: Povbeitem

In the Gem language, “Povbeitem” is the best translation for “back” or “returned”. However, this is a profound type of “returned”, as it is only used for long-captured prisoners of war, or exiles who finally returned after the war’s end. 

The last time this kind of war had torn Greg's head apart, Rose was more than a picture.  
Of course, even now, Rose was more than a picture. Now, she was his son, who had grown so much, too much, too fast from when her death was first fresh. And look at him now. Looking at a picture of his own. Looking at a picture of Steven, who then wasn’t old enough to get past the stage of his doctor running constant tests on what he described as a “unique” umbilical cord.  
And now look at Steven. Eighteen. The wedding with Connie had been just a half a year ago, even if most of the flowers from then had turned brown. The closing on their own house had been done just a month ago. A month ago…  
What had he missed? During the wedding, he had been crying, yes, but he’d been crying while thinking about the days when Steven was first using the birch-white couch downstairs to help him walk. He’d been too sucked into that moment, and by the time the clock in him had switched to “now”, Steven was laying the home insurance paperwork on the dining table, asking Greg to help him fill it out. And where was he now?  
Well, now, he was where he always was. Except now, the baby, the boy, the man that was under his wing was now flying towards the capitol, wanting to further improve relations between Gems and humans. And Greg couldn’t help feeling cheated, no matter how unethical it may be. Couldn’t Steven be improving his relationship with him? With Pearl? Garnet? Amethyst?  
Pearl. Where was Pearl? Off to busy himself with other things, Greg half-put, half-dropped the picture.  
Pearl was in the kitchen, but now he remembered the reason why he’d thought to ask- Pearl was walking, bordering on running, out of the kitchen. There was a bag of flour and some eggs on the table- Pearl had always wanted to try cherry pie- but now Garnet and Amethyst were running after her, wanting her to come back.  
And in a few seconds, the reason why walked in the door.  
Steven walked in, clean-shaven as he could be, now standing a little taller than his father. A vinyl was gripped in his hand.  
Greg thought of belaboring himself for thinking of Pearl before he started talking to Steven, but he didn’t go through with it. “Steven! How you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be in the capitol doing speeches?”  
“Woooo, I think you’re getting a little hasty there, Dad. The closing was just a month ago. We’re still trying to move ourselves into there. Settle in. Buy stuff I didn’t have in my room. Like an oven. Stuff like that.”  
“But why’d you come back?”  
Steven shuffled the vinyl a little closer to his father.  
“My music! You’ve been listening to my old music?” Something flew a little lighter somewhere in Greg that he thought wouldn’t fly again for awhile. “I thought the last of the fans died off ages ago! I didn’t know you’d jump on the bandwagon!”  
Steven chuckled. “Well, it’s a little more than that. It’s just that…”  
“Just what? Come on, get settled in.”  
Steven had only been meaning to stay there for a few minutes to propose an idea, but a few minutes quickly turned into a few hours, Pearl not being coaxed out of the bedroom until Steven got the bright idea of turning Pearl's inhumanly-tidy ingredients into the pie she'd intended on making before; she ate it, said thank you and hello to Steven, and went back.  
Garnet and Amethyst didn't keep her from walking on back.  
Steven looked a little distressed at the fact that he couldn’t find anywhere to put the record. “Has she gotten any better?”  
Garnet. “Well, she hasn’t gotten any better, per se, but I’m not going to lie… we didn’t expect her to come out of her room for a whole lot longer.”  
“I still want to go and see if she’s okay-”  
This time, Greg spoke up. “Trust me. It’ll only make things worse. C’mon. I need to talk to you about something before you go.”  
Amethyst and Garnet looked at each other with a little mix of hope and a creeping bit of fear for both boys, quickly gathered what was left of the pie, and shuffled off to Pearl’s room.  
The rest went to the couch in the living room, and instead of dread, childhood hit Steven, wrecked him. For a few moments or so, he found he couldn’t keep himself from starting a reaction that would eventually leave to him crying, When he was a baby, Pearl had used that couch to hold him, to rock him to sleep, to sing old lullabies in the Gem language when the rocking didn’t work- the sight of his dad made it slow down enough that he could stop the thoughts, the tears.  
“You okay?”  
Steven smiled a little, a half-crescent of a smile; the reaction died. “Yeah. I’m-it’s just a little much.”  
“I know. Son, you don’t have to visit so oft-”  
“You’re my dad, Dad. Even without the Gems, why wouldn’t I visit?”  
“God in Heaven, Jesus…”  
Greg never finished his sentence.  
“Steven, I don’t want to make you upset, but…”  
“But?” Steven clenched the cushion under him.  
“I just wondered if- if I should-”  
He clenched it a little harder.  
“If...if I should bring back Mr. Universe.”  
Some of the most-tensed muscles in Steven’s body relaxed; his shoulders slumped, his father having to poke a finger at the small of his back to get him to sit up properly again.  
“Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a great idea! And Marty’s out of the way, isn’t he?”  
“Yeah! And we can perform in the bowling alley, in the theater, in the donut shop, and hey, maybe even in one of the schools. And maybe the Gems can join us somehow?”  
“The Gems… I don’t know about that. You’ll have to ask them. Ever since the Diamonds released their statement telling the Gems on Homeworld that Earth was great and all and more and more Gems started coming, tensions between them and humans are just...just crazy. The other day, one of my friends in the capital wanted to go off and get groceries at the one expensive place downtown, and they refused business to them because they ‘didn’t like the color of their hair.’ Can you believe it? They didn’t like the color of their hair! So what?!”  
“Woah, woah, hey…” Steven didn’t realize he was on tiptoes until the back of his calves started to hurt. “You’re definitely cut out for your job as ambassador, arentcha... You might want to sit down now, Steven, okay?”  
He took a breath. “I know, Dad. All I’m saying is…”  
He didn’t know how else to describe it. His childhood was closing in on it now, and he felt as if a bridge were forming. All he needed to do was to close it. But would he welcoming more friends into his life? Or would people who decided they wanted to form an animosity against him come pouring to the other side?  
“...I want to help.”  
Something lit up in Greg, but dread came back and pulled that something back, kept it from bursting. “You… you do? That’s great! That’s...incredible! When are you free? When...when are you going to be free? Don’t you have lots of things to do? You’re the ambassador now. You have a lot of deadlines, commitments, the Gems there, Connie...”  
Greg felt the invisible paleness on his face.  
“...And it’ll be more of a doozy to ask when you have kids, after all…”  
Steven saw it, pounced. "But, hey...that won't be until a long time, okay, Dad?" By the time Greg felt Steven's hand on his, because of the nerve damage still existing from the day it went necrotic from the injector's poison, all of the Gems had already left Pearl's room. "Connie and I are still settling in."  
Steven felt his phone ringing in his pocket, picked it up. "Hello, you've reached the Ambassador to the Gems."  
Not Steven. Not Steven anymore. Now, he was the Ambassador to the Gems. For the first time in at least a few years, Greg looked at his son, and what looked back at him wasn't as human as Greg thought he was. He had to soak that in for a long, long, time, a hardened pier-post soaking in the sun and water splashing underneath it, before he could think of what to do next.  
“...yes, oh, hi, Connie! Is it-”  
Garnet and Amethyst peeked their heads into the room, Amethyst looking a little more concerned than Garnet. Maybe they were feeling the same emotion- no, not an emotion, a concept. Maybe they were feeling the same concept Greg was…  
“-Connie, I’m visiting Dad now, but I’ll be in the capital as soon as I can to resolve this. This was worse than what the agencies predicted, how ironic, huh?…”  
Greg craned his head for Pearl, and Amethyst flapped her hands back and forth in the air like a seagull’s wings, pointed to the back. Greg nodded, waved goodbye to his son, closed the screen door behind him.  
The waves. The waves, the swash battered the sand, coaxed the molecrabs out of their hiding spots, tossed them out before digging another hole for them. Disoriented, they moved on and were tossed by the waves again. If they had mouths, they’d undoubtedly be screaming.  
But Pearl was silent.  
“What’s going on? How are you feeling?”  
Another wave, three, four, five, made their way to what sufficed as the backyard. Still, Pearl said nothing. Did nothing.  
“You want anything?”  
“I….”  
Pearl shivered. The beachwinds were still warm.  
“I think I want a daughter.”  
A spine coiled in Greg. Two. Three. He had to say something...  
“A daughter?! But you and I… you aren’t… with anyone, you’re-I’m not!..Why would you..?”  
“I know. I know. Rose wouldn’t have wanted that. You wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want that. I just want a daughter. Always have.”  
It took five minutes before either of them said anything. There wasn’t any noise; no one opened the screen door. There was only the noise of the waves, the constant waves, the wind blowing on the thinning areas of fabric where Pearl had plucked at her shirt.  
“I guess…”  
It was a breath that Greg had held in his chest for God knows how many years.  
“I guess I’ve always wanted one, too.”


	3. Season 6, Chapter 2: Buchmierchsy

As soon as Steven came back to his chocolate-black, power-washed, glorified apartment in the capital, as soon as he hung his coat on the coat rack, it was as if the world had gone to hel.  
There were at least 5 intergalactic threats coming in to Earth. There were always at least 3, but they were minor. They were judged by a scale Steven had devised to be either technologically behind enough for him to be able to reach them or harmless enough that if they were to come to Earth, they’d instantly be repelled after Steven released a statement. But five… five wasn’t what either member of the couple expected for the first few years, let alone the first few months. Steven and Connie had already debated, escalating to the point that had they had kids, they’d call it “arguing”, about who would do which job. First, Steven would assess how safe it was. If it was safe enough, then perhaps Connie could come along with him. But he needed someone who could assist him remotely, and someone who was good with computers. Both Steven and Connie, night after night, had tried to get it past themselves that this wasn’t on account of Connie being a woman. Occasionally, Connie would even take on solo missions, with Steven doing his best to navigate the depths of the GPS system. And whenever Steven was gone, she took care of the visitors in one way or another. In a matter of days, she became the master of excuses.  
There’s a newspaper circulating that has convinced at least 24% of all citizens in the capital that the war was originally intended to bring destruction to the Earth under the disguise that they were trying to defend it? He’ll attend to it soon.  
After he took care of the first two threats, both from planets entirely unrelated to Homeworld, he was allowed to run with Connie as they both scrambled to get the house together. Respectability. Respectability, they found, was a precious resource in the capital, and something that wasn’t necessarily entirely delved from the inside.  
By the time he took care of the next threat, not only was it time to shave again, but it was also time to tell his father that, yes he was sorry he and Connie didn’t help him with Mr. Universe thus far, and yes, he could help out until he was needed again. And yes, he knew how much the Gems missed him.  
He played one gig at the donut shop, all Greg’s old songs. He felt like he was a god. He was a god of this moment, seizing it, extracting it, pouring out his soul into the audience, into everything he’d been torn away from. He was everything he’d ever wanted to be. He-  
Another threat came.  
Another.  
Another.  
There’s been a riot against a Gem-operated grocer, with three others in town already threatening to close up shop and force at least five neighborhoods to have to travel at least an hour for their food? He’ll attend to it soon.  
It’d been a little over a week now since his dad had first proposed the idea of bringing back Mr. Universe, and Connie had already joked to Steven about his routine in her deadpan-yet-endlessly-charming way.  
Dawn: Get up. Shove a breakfast down your throat. Check the Omnitransmitter for any new messages of threats. See that there’s 5, or maybe 6. Put on your coat and step on the lightpad.  
Dawn to noon: Find wherever this thing may be.  
Noon: Find whatever you can on the new planet that you’re on and eat it. If your body starts to shut down from any poison in it, there’s a serum in your backpack that Connie, with help from Peridot, designed for you that you can inject.  
Noon to 3: Fight-or persuade- this thing, or things, and live through this hel. There’s a portable lightpad Connie designed for you once you’re through.  
3 to 6: The second threat. Find it, persuade it, fight it if you have the bravado.  
6: Come back home and eat dinner with Connie. Kiss her, dance with her, tell her you love her so very much. And you do love her. You’re just busy, that’s all.  
6 to 9: The third threat. Find, persuade, fight. Maybe squeeze in a fourth one if one of them wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.  
9: Come home. Get yourself ready for bed. Videochat with the Gems, or maybe Dad. Curl up next to Connie. Collapse.  
Such was life in the capital.  
There’s problems with parents attempting to take two, three weeks off of work in order to participate in neighborhood protests? He’ll attend to it soon.  
He’ll attend to it all soon.  
This went on for about 3 days or so until, one day, Steven and Connie realized Amethyst wasn’t in the videochat. In fact, according to the Gems, she wasn’t anywhere in the city.  
“Where is she?” Steven asked.  
Pearl had gotten daring enough to show her face to him, although Steven, even through his crushing fatigue, could physically see the battle she was having with her tears. “We..” she half-muttered. “We wanted to keep it a surprise, and…”  
Garnet. “She went to the capital.”  
Silence from both ends for a few seconds.  
“That’s….that’s nice!” Steven finally determined. “Although she could’ve scheduled it first, and…oh, no. She can’t come now. I’m just swamped, and...I’ll call her, alright?”  
Pearl gained enough territory in her battle to speak up. “You could try, but she’s...Amethyst. And even if you do manage to get her back here, there’s no guarantee that she’ll decide to visit like this again.”  
“I know.”  
Dread already built up to a crescendo in Steven as he, having enough sense to keep the videochat open after a warning from Connie not to close it, called Amethyst.  
A short, quiet groan, a manifestation, escaped from him. He didn’t want to lose any of his friends; he knew that. But he also wanted to keep his planet. Would it be ethical, Steven thought, to keep his friends close, but to kill billions? To not be a martyr-  
Steven had to stop himself. He wasn’t a martyr. He was doing his job, that was all. And what a job it was.  
“Hey, this is Amethyst.”  
“Hey, Amethyst, it’s me.”  
“I know it’s you, ya goof. Who else could it be?!”  
Steven could practically hear her smile, and that smile couldn’t help but pounce it’s way onto Steven’s face. “So… where are you right now? You weren’t really anywhere when I called home.”  
“I think you know. Although Felix wouldn’t let me in, and I’m kind of kicked out to the bench back here…”  
“Felix? Who’s Felix?!”  
“You know...the doorman?”  
Steven half-put, half-slammed the phone on the table, ran as fast as his just-taller-than-his-dad feet could go, with Connie on his tail, his door open in a split-second, ridiculously dangerous moment.  
Still, the phone was shrill to the empty air. “You don’t know the name of your own doorman?”  
By the time Steven sprinted to the lobby, Connie was already formulating a specific- extremely specific- set of questions to ask Felix. Her mind was a notebook, and it was one of a plethora of a plethora of things that left Steven weak whenever he came home in the evenings to dance with her.  
“Felix.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Did Amethyst ask for anything? Or was she threatening to begin with?”  
“Amethyst? Who’s she?”  
“The girl that might’ve walked in a few minutes ago. Y’know. Short. Stocky. Black tank top.”  
“Who?”  
It took every fiber in her body to keep herself from laughing.  
“Purple.” It came out as more of an exhale, and she couldn’t help but smile, cough once or twice.  
“Her? No, of course not… she just came asking for Steven. But we have to acknowledge things like this as a threat. Company policy.”  
“Did she know the room name? Stuff like that?”  
“Yeah, she did. Come to think of it, that was more threatening than if she didn’t.”  
“But what about the time when Mrs. Berry came to have lunch with us? She knew the room name. She came asking. And it was a surprise.”  
All Felix did was mutter something about “company policy” before Steven came in, an Amethyst with a little layer of slight shame coming behind her.  
“She can stay now, alright, Felix?” asked Steven. “She has my permission.” Felix nodded, before jotting God knows what on his clipboard, the shadows around the room flitting for a bit before going back to normal. Amethyst looked at him longer than she would most people jotting something down on a clipboard, like a thief, before following the couple to their apartment.  
Steven spent about five to six minutes or so catching up, with Amethyst telling him about her plans to join the human Army, the audible smile on her face growing wider and wider with each thing she listed about her being prepared for it. She’d already enlisted Pearl’s help in sewing up something special for it, the fabric all slightly tight, comfortable, aristocratic. And Garnet? She hadn’t told Garnet about it yet, but she suspected Garnet knew. Peridot and Lapis knew, although they’d decided not to proclaim it on the hilltops for now. And Bismuth? Bismuth had enough war in her life to where if Amethyst even mentioned it, she’d start throwing herself into her work even more than she did already.  
Except there was one problem. By the time the Omnitranmitter signaled another threat, this time from Beta-Nine’s self-proclaimed ruler Partvereis, Steven had no idea what Amethyst’s uniform was like, or Peridot’s or Lapis’ or Bismuth’s reactions.  
And if it weren’t for a little goading from Connie, he wouldn’t have known that Amethyst wanted to come with him.  
The verdict? “Ummm…. uh, why not? I normally take hours to do this. Maybe you can help cut it down a little.”  
Amethyst, as Steven thought, was no help when it came to scouting. She knew the stars, knew them as if they were branded on her skin, on her Gem, even. She could’ve told Steven how to route the lightpad, but that was about all. For the hour or so that they walked, she followed Steven’s lead, shrugging whenever Steven asked questions like, “Do you think we should go past the formations here, or….” “I don’t think it’s a good idea to split up, but there is a fork in the road, and I don’t know where we should…”  
That was until they stumbled across Beta-Nine’s ruler while the both of them were trying to scale a cliff.  
It was Amethyst whose feet scuttled a little, who jumped off first. It was Amethyst who took out what Steven could only describe as a studded cat o’nine tails, something that would make any of the few priests he’d ever met shudder.  
And it was Amethyst who made the cry of “Buchmierchsy!”...the universal Gem battle cry meaning that there would be no negotiations. One of them would die. And the Gem crying it out would do her best not to be the one.  
Steven gripped his sword, but resisted the urge to unsheathe it. He jumped down more vertically than Amethyst did, ran up to her, made his own battle cry, “They could’ve just needed to talk!”  
“Talk? It was growling at us! It was about to yank us both off of the cliff!”  
One of Partveries’ legs, outstretched, a half-vine, about half as tall and half as wide as the cliff they were scaling, raised its head ten feet or so behind Steven. The sense of danger both human and Gemkind have built up in Steven, and it was then that he unsheathed its sword.  
“Alright. But next time, get my permission. We could’ve not been having thi-”  
The half-vine flung towards Steven, and Amethyst moved faster than Steven could get out a single letter. She bounded, leapt, pushed Steven out of the way, cocked her whip, was flung to the far edge of the cliff, shuddered a little, and lay still.  
Just like that.  
“AMETHYST!”  
There wasn’t any hope for negotiations now, if Steven had any of it before. Without hesitation, he stabbed the creature in the eye, making sure to go deeply enough just to annoy it. He was a cross between a human and a Gem, not a monster. In no time, it was hissing, scuttling away off to God knows where, the half-vines nearly tripping Steven.  
And in no time, Steven was beside Amethyst, shaking her even after he saw that she was clutching her head with one hand, but pushing herself back up with the other until she was seated. “I’m fine, Steven! If my Gem got hit, you think I’d be this...y’know...me?”  
That smile went up on her face again for a little while, before it dropped a little, the hand on her head meeting the other on the cliff floor.  
“You okay, Amethyst?”  
“Yeah. Let’s just get away from here.”  
After a few minutes, the both of them finished their scaling of the cliff. Both Amethyst and Steven had little to no knowledge of the plant life on Beta-Nine, and so they both scattered to the few trees dotting the cliff, plucking off berries that Steven swore glowed green a little when he tilted it towards the planet’s second sun. Both of them came back with about one and a half handfuls.  
And Steven ate in silence, unlike what Steven had been used to since he was a kid.  
Steven swallowed. “You...sure you okay?”  
“Of course I am, Steven. It’s just…”  
“Just what?”  
She didn’t say anything for a half a minute. Steven grabbed the next handful of berries, realized because of the rumbling in his stomach that the glow may not have been a trick of the light. His mind shrugged; he injected some of the serum into him just in case and continued eating.  
“Restless.”  
Steven didn’t expect any words, and he coughed like he’d never been allowed to cough before in. Amethyst looked at him with a hint of concern. He put up his hand, grabbed his canteen, took a few sips. “I’m sorry, Amethyst. What’d you say?”  
“Restless. I’m just...restless. That’s all. I mean..”  
Steven settled himself into the same criss-cross applesauce position he’d used since his father’d first tried to homeschool him as a kid.  
“...I’d say I’ve felt restless since the time you’ve left, but to be honest, I’ve felt it since… a long time. Since forever, in fact. And it doesn’t go back to Lars or to Jasper and Lapis or any of that. It goes back to...I think… not the Kindergarten, nope! But… it goes far back. You get what I mean, don’t you?”  
All Steven could do was nod.  
“But I’ve got a confession to make. Something I’ve done since you were gone.”  
This time, Steven could do more. He could imagine all the possibilities. Did she kill someone? Okay, that was a little extreme. Maybe she did something to tick a group of humans off, and now the humans are using her as a scapegoat. Or maybe it was something small. Maybe she helped Bismuth to remodel his room and make it into something else while he was gone… if she did, boy, was Bismuth going to get her own personal video chat tonight…  
“I’ve made new friends.”  
And Steven was hurt. Not a Spinel hurt. But it was still a hurt that drove him to sit up until he was taller, more human than, more than Amethyst was.  
If she noticed, she didn’t say a word about it. “There’s Arlene, Grady, Salvador- he was a funny one- Dave, Catherine… but the thing is, none of them went to the lighthouse. None of them knew what my favorite games were, or about you, or, heck, even how to say ‘good morning’ in Gem! They-”  
“Point is?”  
It was then that Amethyst scrambled to find herself on the rock she’d been using to support herself with her left hand the entire time, and sat down on top of it.  
“Point is… I need something. I need to join the Army. And I guess what I want… is your blessing. Because I’ve got none of it from anybody else. They’re done with war. All of them. But not me, I was made after. After! I want- I want to be a part of something that I want to. Not be...forced, y’know?”  
The smile was gone. But now it sounded like she was fighting her own battle with something. Steven quickly realized it was tears.  
So Steven quickly weighed the options. Keeping Amethyst here wouldn’t be keeping her safe. And, by the looks of Steven’s topaz-powered watch, it wouldn’t keep his missions as efficient as he wanted them to be, either. And, as long as she wore some type of armor over her chest, she was safe, wasn’t she? Falling off the cliff way back when was more dangerous for her than this.  
He looked back at her a little, and he could see it now. See the restlessness plaguing her bones, the mania.  
Besides, it was what she wanted, right?  
He could be playful now, he realized. He could stand, mime a scroll, pretend to be reading it, take on as much faux British as he could. “I, Steven Universe, do hereby proclaim you bless-ehd to join the human Army!”  
And she laughed, and bear-hugged him as her thank you- his noogie days were over by a long shot- and the days came back, and by God, if he could’ve been locked in time, locked on this planet, locked as his playful self, with him and Amethyst sprinting, unabashed, down childhood’s road.  
By God, if it could all be stock-still...


	4. Season 6, Chapter 3: Pryzad

In a more colloquial context than "povbeitem", the Gem word "pryzad" means "new arrival". In contrast to "povbeitem", "pryzad" has the context of celebration and joy with this new arrival.

Spinel shot her way down to the Little Homeworld’s lightpad; it was in the ocean air that she first tasted it. Not in the people that had shot up like reinforcements from a Kindergarten since the last time Spinel had seen them. And not in the stores that had closed their doors, the doors that had opened, not in the little candy shops that’d changed hands under different owners. It was in the air. Spinel knew what it was, and a little ounce of dread crept over her shoulders. There was something crucial that she didn’t know about when she first came with the Diamonds, although her concentration was thrown off as to what it was as a group of humans swarmed around her, and Spinel knew instantly that anything that started off with “That’s the girl who…” wouldn’t end well.  
So before having the guts to show up at the lighthouse, she showed up at the makeup place. The first one she was tossed out of. The second and third she received the same treatment, although with a little teasing about how she should remove her tear marks before doing anything else. But-although it could’ve been because the cashier was a little distracted by her anniversary- Spinel was allowed to grab as much bottles of the lightest foundation as she could and slap some of her Universal Falsepjien on the table, designed to trick any non-Gem species into thinking it was their version of money. She excused herself to the public bathroom.  
She never noticed how echo-y Earth voices could sound, or how claustrophobic they could design buildings while keeping them spacious. She stayed there for a half an hour, plastering the foundation on every area of uncovered skin, waiting for it to dry, grabbing a NASA hoodie someone had lain on the ground. She put the hood on, tucked her pigtails into it. Swinging by the clinic, she grabbed a surgical mask to put over her mouth..the only area she couldn’t quite perfect. Her hands jumped into her pockets, and that was it.  
Here she was...a human.  
Or at least human enough to last the ten-minute walk to Steven’s home with her feeling relatively safe, although the dread never completely stopped attacking her.  
And when she finally knocked on Steven’s door, she was so paranoid about the group walking on the sidewalk that she didn’t even recognize that no one was home.  
Ten minutes had to pass before she pulled off her hoodie and mask and started spraying herself with the hose to get the foundation off.  
Fifteen minutes had to pass before the van pulled into the driveway. Greg stepped out, still not used to the fact that there wasn’t anyone in the passenger seat, and ran towards the small alien thing in his front yard that was using his hose.  
He saw those pigtails before.  
“Spinel?!”  
Her heart jumped. She whipped around, almost sprayed him with the hose, face still dripping with foundation.  
“What are you...doing? And why do you have all that on you and into my grass?”  
She froze for two seconds. Three. Felt like minutes to her. She took the hose, lay it on its side, careful not to drop it on its back like a fool and spray the both of them to no end.  
“I… I thought I’d say goodbye to Steven one last time, and…”  
“Why now, though? And why…. why are you soaking stuff into my grass? I….” He made the sigh only a well-seasoned father can make. “I’ll take care of this, Spinel. Just take my keys from the car and unlock the front door- it’s the one with the star on it. There’s towels in the closet.”  
Spinel was still slightly staggered that he’d let her take his keys, but in no time, she was in the bathroom, wiping off whatever foundation was left on her face, starting to dry off her legs, desperately trying to soak back with the towels all the water her hoodie and her hair had soaked in. The NASA logo was swollen…  
There was a knock on the door. “You done?”  
“Almost.” Spinel gave up on the hoodie, gave it and the towels that she didn’t use to catch the water dripping from her hair to Greg.  
She sat on the couch, her thoughts almost overwhelming her, and she gave an instinctual tug on her pigtails for a moment.  
What was she doing? She couldn’t go on like this. She wasn’t ever going to patch up her relationship with Steven, or anyone else on this planet. Hel, she couldn’t even repair her relationship with the planet- she probably chopped off its lifespan by at least a few hundred years with her tomfoolery. And it wasn’t like she could go back to the Diamonds...she barely escaped being poofed at the literal hands of Yellow last time.  
And it was then that she found out why her thoughts were especially overwhelming this time.  
That was the reason why Pink had wanted to leave them so much.  
That was the reason why Pink had wanted to leave them so much. But what the strangest thing about it was that she didn’t want to cry, or scream, or laugh, or jump up and down. Could she have had enough of Pink? But she couldn’t, wouldn’t have enough of Pink! She tugged her pigtails again…  
“Spinel?”  
Greg had already positioned himself next to her with a mug of something hot in his hand.  
“What’s that?”  
“It’s called coffee. I have more in the kitchen, if...”  
She touched a finger to the mug, put her finger in her mouth for a bit and took it out again. “No, thank you.”  
A few seconds pause. The ocean waves were in the corner of Spinel’s eye.  
“Spinel, can you please start from the beginning?”  
“The beginning of what?”  
“Okay. Why are you here? Why were you dressed like that? What are you doing in my front yard? Why-”  
“I can’t answer more than one-”  
He took a breath. A long one.  
“Why are you here?”  
“I’m here…” Spinel felt the need to repeat herself, felt for just a moment that Greg was beneath her. Regret pounced on her, clawed at her chest. “...to say...goodbye to Steven.”  
“But why now?”  
“Why not now? I haven’t been gone for a very long time, haven’t I?”  
“I guess not. I mean, the Gems have been around for a pretty long time, so who am I to say what’s long in that respect…”  
“I guess… I mean, I’ve only been gone for… when I was last here, that small thing on the clock was pointed to 5, and the big thing was pointed to 1, so the big thing shouldn’t have moved that far yet, right?”  
“What?”  
“I said, that small thing on the clock was…”  
“I know what you said. Spinel, let me bring the clock here.”  
Greg got up, leaving a crop circle of coffee from the bottom of the cup on the couch, and Spinel couldn’t help but to stare, and to think again of her walk on the boardwalk. She could point something out now, a torch in a cavern. She could point out its milky glow, and with every detail, it got brighter. The donut shops...some were new, some she remembered from their search for Amethyst were now something else… brighter. The people were a little taller now, and there were new people, very, very tiny people, that Spinel didn’t recognize...brighter. And the flowers, the flowers were growing again, and some were new, and with different patterns Spinel couldn’t even imagine… brighter.  
The clock came...brighter.  
“So, when you left, the small hand was on the 5…”  
It was called a hand. Now that was strange..  
“...and the big on the 1, right?” Greg’s finger left the slightest coffee mark on the clock, although Spinel couldn’t voice that. She couldn’t voice anything right now.  
“But there’s a number under it, Spinel. In the center, here.”  
The waves crashed against the shoreline.  
That number had been two digits lower than Spinel saw now.  
“Spinel…it’s been two years.”


	5. Hiatus is Over

MY HIATUS IS DONE  
back to reading!


	6. Season 6, Chapter 4: Rosa

And Spinel sat there. Like a statue, except for the fact that statues didn't rustle their hands through their hair.  
A half a minute passed without her saying anything. Knowing far better than to ask if she was okay, he started to make the calls, starting off with the ones who'd yell at him the loudest if they saw Spinel sitting on their couch. Of course, Pearl was the first to come home, with Amethyst and Garnet coming a little while afterwards, groceries in hand, Amethyst having told Garnet during that time that Steven had given her his blessing to join the army . There was the sound of Amethyst dropping her bags, and a little sigh from Garnet as she moved to pick them up. But soon, there was a crowd around the living room, and something icy crept up on Greg's shoulders. This was the almost-exact way that the group gathered around the living room during Christmas, or Steven's birthday, or when Steven was still on the tail end of recovering from injuries that his mother's tears quickly shushed, mended from the inside out.  
Spinel adjusted herself on the couch.  
Greg began once the ocean waves started to be louder than anything happening inside the house. "Alright. Everyone, I want to be the one to explain why she's here, okay? She's a little shaken up right now."  
Pearl stiffened, put her weight on her tiptoes before going back again. "I don't think you should speak for her. She came here. She should do the talking. And, besides, what is she even doing here?" She threw out her hand, took it back in before she realized what she was doing. "We can't just...let her in like this after what she did last time! She just came down from the Diamonds, and they could've put her in as a spy....Christ's sake, is that how…? " Greg shook his head slightly, very slightly.  
Amethyst was silent, but looked like the hardwood floor was suddenly much more interesting than before. That type of talk from humans would get Gems like her "messed up", as she'd say it, but at the same time, a part of her she didn't necessarily delight in felt Pearl was completely right.  
:”No,” Greg said. His voice was very soft, almost soft enough that the waves could tuck it in in the seabed. “No. That’s not how it happened. Do…” he looked at Spinel, who looked back at him with the tar-marks down her eyes before looking back at no one in particular. “Do you know how time works in the Diamond court? It must be different than how time works here.”  
“Who wants to know?” asked Garnet out of reflex.  
“I want to know,” said Greg out of reflex, before Spinel even thought of squeezing any words from herself.  
Garnet sat down in the nearby bench. She was tall enough then so that everyone, Amethyst being a possible exception, didn’t have to stoop down, but short enough so that Amethyst and Pearl had to clear a path for her in the middle so Greg could see her.  
“It’s not about how much time passes. If that were true, then whenever Steven and Connie would go there, time would pass indefinitely here. It’s about time perception. Gems first came into existence a...a very long time ago.”  
She threw down a hand on the bench before realizing it.  
“Anybody’s mind would collapse if they had to experience so much time consciously. So much time and life turns into something like a day that won’t seem like it’ll ever end. Here on Earth, it’s different. But on Homeworld, they can throw a ball for what seems to be a few hours, and in fact is probably… probably…” her hand faltered-  
“4 years exactly.” Pearl couldn’t help but smile in a way that spread to Spinel for a reason none of the two could quite pinpoint.  
“4 years. So that settles it.” Garnet stood.  
Greg. “Right, right. I think what happened…” he could practically feel Pearl forming a counterargument. “I think what happened is that Spinel went to Homeworld on the Diamond ship, right? Then, she went there for a little while and wanted to come back here and come back one last time before the Diamonds knew. Except she wasn’t just there for a little while.”  
“Sounds like that’s how it was.”  
Everyone whipped their eyes at Spinel. Spinel had spoke. She made a little gasp-just a little more than an exhale-gripped at the couch’s edge, and slowly crouched down in the couch before sitting face forward.  
Pearl then pounced her gaze back on Greg. When Greg realized it and made eye contact, Garnet and Amethyst knew they didn’t have anything more to do than to put away the groceries, maybe hide in Amethyst’s room for awhile and play some rounds of Galaga.  
Because then, the courtroom was adjourned.  
___________  
“I must be out of my mind. You must be out of your mind.”  
That was the last thing Pearl said before going to Garnet and Amethyst and telling them an overexaggerated version of what happened. And here Spinel was, sitting forty-five minutes later, in a bedroom. Not Steven’s bedroom; that would be heresy. She didn’t have anything to unpack, and neither did she know what humans normally did when unpacking and moving into a new place. She didn’t know what Amethyst had told her when talking about a “poster” or a “roller bag”.  
But Pearl and Greg knew.  
And Greg especially knew that if they were going to survive the six months that Spinel was going to be there, then he’d have to do some major lobbying. Maybe just stop over at Steven’s condo one day, ask him for a few pointers…  
The conversation had started something like this.  
“Pearl, why not send her back to the Diamonds?”  
She took a breath without needing to; in moments like this, it was clear as to why humans needed oxygen. It cleared their heads. And when her head was cleared, she saw the consequences of tens of thousands of years unfold in it.  
Telling him about Rose’s past, at least to this extent? He knew that she was a Diamond and that she rebelled against them in the beginning. But there was something that had a pernicious, inherent ugliness to it. Pearl found that nobody could shake it off. Pearl found that nobody could shake off her memories. Nights of Rose...never Pink...wanting to sleep with her in the room to the right upstairs, not for the sake of love, but because Rose had a crushing fear creeping on her back that once the door was shut behind her when she was alone, it would be locked from the other side.  
Pearl couldn’t unlock that door. She knew it.  
But looking like a motherly figure to Spinel already? That was Greg’s role, for the most part. How would the others react to her acting this way? And even if everyone in Little Homeworld were to somehow approve of this, what about all the humans? They outnumbered them 45 to 1, easily, even with the new Gems pouring in.  
What other choice did she have?  
“We can’t,” Pearl finally said to him.  
“Why not?”  
“We just...can’t, alright? Besides, they won’t notice she’s gone even if she stays with us for longer.”  
He noticed the redirection, decided to let it slide for both their sakes. “Alright. But for how long?”  
Pearl made a fist, tapped the left side on her chin. “The average attention span for a Diamond is about fifteen minutes. Convert that into human time and it would be approximately six months.”  
“So….March, right?”  
“Yes, March.”  
“Alright. But we have to lay some ground rules.”  
Classic Pearl. Greg couldn’t help but laugh.  
“What?!”  
“Ah, nothin’.”  
“Ground rules.” More conviction this time. “Rule #1: she can’t eat or drink, no matter how much she wants to. She doesn’t need to, and besides, if she’s going to be here, she may as well not be a drain on your income.”  
“On Steven’s income,” Greg almost said.  
“Rule #2: she’s going to have to be the main person to do chores. I could say try and get her a job, but she’s the best judge about how that’s going to turn out.”  
Greg nodded, but there was something only given to him, something almost sacred about him doing more than most of his friends’ share of chores. Being without a wife tended to do that, at least as far as he knew.  
“And rule #3: she’ll go back to the Diamonds if- but only if-she starts becoming violent again.”  
“Nothing else? No...you know, counselors? They have a few in town, don’t they?”  
“Can you imagine bringing her out in public? The last time she was here, she wanted to end all organic life on Earth! I doubt that organic life would be happy now, Greg.”  
“But that can apply with everywhere else! The grocery store, visiting Steven, going on advocacy trips… is she going to be a complete shut-in for the next six months?!’  
Pearl knew it would come to this. She was dsigned to know it would come to this. But that didn’t stop her from squeezing her eyes shut, squeezing the little space between her eyebrows. “Just….just let me talk to her about it, alright? You can later if you’d like.”  
He nodded, but almost tripped on her heels soon as she saw her walking out the door, the sea winds making it easier to slam. “It’s a yes, isn’t it? Just wanted to double-check.”  
Pearl looked back at him, almost in sadness. “Did I say no?”  
And off to Spinel’s- the spare bedroom she went. She fought the urge to go into Amethyst’s bedroom, to tell the both of them what life was going to be like for the next six months, and if they so chose, they could both go to the van and spend the next six months in one of the beach houses on the outskirts of Delmarva, at least a half an hour away from anywhere Spinel would be.  
Pearl realized that Spinel was sitting in the exact same position she’d been in before they talked. Instead of saying the obvious, Pearl chose to say, “Why do you deserve to be here?”  
“Huh?”  
“Why do you think you deserve to be here?” Pearl’s fingers clenched in her right hand before threading back out again.  
There was a thirty second pause. A few half-sentences sputtered out of Spinel before she retreated back, all without changing her position. But a particularly loud breeze from the Atlantic made the words jump right back out again.  
“I don’t deserve to be here. I’ve told myself that from the very beginning.”  
“But-”  
“But the Diamonds…” she saw the mix of sadness and dread creep up on Pearl, and had the too-fuzzy memory of being taught by Pink the word for this mix, demonikivanie… “...the first thing that I thought I was to them was ignored. But even then, I would’ve stayed, but..., I got in the way of a protest on the street, and that was when Yellow, haha, wanted me to squeeze me like a balloon.”  
It was only then Pearl noticed that Spinel had a hand on the side of her ribs. “I know,” Pearl said. “Yellow would do something like that. When Rose was with the Diamonds, she wasn’t treated the best either.”  
Confusion sprouted on Spinel’s face, then died giving birth to a smile. “It’s alright. It’s not like I’ll be here forever. I know who I am here. I mean, back when I was outside, I had to put on makeup and pretend to be human just to walk here.”  
Oh, God. Oh, God. This was going to be worse than Pearl thought.  
“I just wanted to go back here and tell everyone...in a big, huge way...that I’m sorry. Not just Steven, how old is he now?... but to everyone else. I mean, nobody deserved what I did, no matter what Pink did to me. Garnet and Amethyst...they’re some of the best Gems I’ve met. Not that I’ve met a lot. And I mean...if the planet’s still damaged, maybe I can still help.”  
“Not anytime soon. If there’s any damage left, Steven would be the only one to have to fix it.”  
“And I’m so thirsty.”  
“Well, you’re not drinking anything anytime soon. You’re a Gem. You don’t need to.”  
“I know, I’m just...I know it, I’m going to be a drain on everyone. When will you guys be kicking me out?”  
“This bedroom’s yours until March.”  
“Thanks! But I have one question. What exactly did the other Diamonds do to Pink-”  
“Her name was Rose.”  
She gripped the wood on the door and shook until it closed.


	7. Season 6, Chapter 5: Moi Syn

Two weeks had passed since Spinel had first walked in the door.  
The Diamonds wouldn’t mind, Spinel had to remind herself, as she tried to pull the splinters from the sticks thrown at her when she and Greg went to what they thought was a clear, secluded area on the boardwalk. To them, only ten or so seconds had passed.  
Throughout the course of those two weeks, she found her own self to be...strange. And it was a kind of strange that made her body course with dread. Except it wasn’t just a dread that made her head burn this time- it seemed to turn her stomach into some sort of storm that Lapis would summon would she get angry enough. But what brought this dread to her was that it was new. All of this was new. Too new. And by the look on the other Gems’ faces whenever she told them of whatever she, whatever her body was feeling…  
She laid out the cards in front of her. The first was that she’d woken up in the middle of the last night, her body screaming for water. Only feeling confusion, she’d staggered out and dropped her head in the ocean out back. Relief filled her before the feeling came back, worsened, and she couldn’t hear herself cry out. Woken up by the open door slamming against the wall, Greg saw her, gave her water trapped in the container, the same kind of liquid in the ocean. Confusion burned through her. She practically slapped it out of his hands, drank, half-ran inside ahead of Greg for more, and before she knew it, three full bottles lay empty next to her.  
The second was the next morning, when, without any preamble, she asked for one of the waffles Greg was making, devoured it twice as fast as Greg did, three times as fast as Amethyst did. Amethyst caught herself laughing so hard the chair squeaked, Spinel following suit, the leftover maple syrup collecting on her plate. Garnet couldn’t help but smile, and so her and Spinel had a little waffle-eating contest before all of them went to the boardwalk to assess the human-Gem situation.  
And the third. The third was that after three days of living the way she always had, an incredible amount of fatigue took over her, although it’d been slow, creeping up on her. It was completely foreign to her. She wondered why the rest of them thought they were the aliens, when this feeling was stranger to her than any of the plants back on the Garden. She touched the ground with all four limbs, and soon, she was lying down, another term Greg would tell her about the next morning. She felt the overwhelming urge to blink, and blink for a long, long, while. She didn’t know this before, and, with fear, would force her eyes open again with every blink. With the last blink, she found that her eyes had almost locked themselves closed, and when she could open them one more time, the sun was shining.  
So strange. So strange! In a blink, she’d traveled through time!  
“I traveled through time last night! You guys do this every night?! Man, living on Earth is so much cooler than on Homeworld!”  
At breakfast, Pearl looked at Spinel liked most humans looked at her, but it was only for a second. “You mean you slept?”  
“Is that what it’s called?”  
“Yes. Humans do it every night, although we Gems only do it out of preference.”  
“Yeah, but what I did wasn’t out of...preference. I needed to do it. Like I needed to eat and drink. Can you pass me that- thanks-”  
Thoughts seemed to collide in the kitchen, theories being made left and right. Some thought they should tell the Diamonds, but it was almost like they could hear the others thinking that telling them any weaknesses about her...about anyone...would be a horrible idea. Some thought of getting her blood tested. Maybe she had a virus, or worse, another alien species had put some sort of biological warfare inside her. But one test laster that evening showed nothing was wrong. There was a small amount of poison in it, but that was to be expected considering the amount of tie spent around it. Just to make sure, they tested Greg’s blood in order to put to rest Pearl wondering if humans had a small amount of poison this time and that’s why they ate. Nothing.  
Eventually, everyone except Pearl came to the consensus that as long as she ate, drank, slept, and did everything else that someone like Greg was supposed to do and no complications arose, she would be fine.  
That night, she went in the same position she went in last night, with all four limbs touching the floor. Except she found the floor to be hard and hurt her after a while, so she found the big, soft, blob that looked a little like the living room couch in the middle of the room and had all four limbs touch that, too. She found a place where some sheets were at the top and pulled as hard as she could until the sheets stopped going down. The blob was ready to hold her, and she was ready for her time-traveling adventure again. She’d read earlier about this one guy named Marty McFly who was doing the same exact thing she was doing, except in years, and had tried making a few jokes about him.  
“No, Spinel.” Pearl. “It’s not time traveling. It’s your body going...unconscious for awhile. It’s strange, I know. I had to get used to it myself. And that thing is called a bed, and you’re supposed to go under the covers.”  
I’m tucking her in now. Why in the world am I tucking her in now?  
“Okay.” She arranged herself. She opened her mouth and made a strange noise. Pearl saw the fear on her face almost immediately afterwards and patted the sheets twice before she could stop herself.  
“And that was a yawn.”  
She was learning so many new things. “Yawns” and “beds” and “Marty McFly”s.  
Now to talk about something she already knew.  
“Hey, about all the stuff we saw on the boardwalk…”  
Pearl nodded, fidgeted a little at some lint that flew in her jacket.  
“...it was...pretty bad. I thought stuff that bad only happened on Homeworld. And from what I heard from you guys talking, Steven’s helping to fix it…does he know about me?”  
Now it was Pearl’s turn for the fear to creep up on her face. Steven hadn’t done a gig in 3 weeks, hadn’t visited them in two. Here she was, the closest thing to his sister. His sister. How could Pearl even begin to think about that? How would he react? How would he even begin to feel? Had Pearl started to even feel these feelings yet? What was she supposed to feel? Was Spinel supposed to be his sister? Who was Spinel? Who-  
“Hey, Pearl...you okay?”  
She blinked, dipped her right fingers into her head for a second to help slow down all of these questions. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  
She got up from the bench, and Spinel realized she wasn’t feeling the same way she was feeling the last night. She didn’t feel like doing the same long, slow, blink she did earlier. Were humans supposed to just lay here if they didn’t feel this way too? It seemed awful boring, but she lay there anyway, taking a piece of her hair and twirling it in her fingers under the covers. It was going to be a long time until the sun poured in again through the curtains to her room.  
Pearl looked down. Without realizing it, she was doing the same thing she’d been doing for eighteen years.  
“Goodnight, moi syn.”  
“‘Son?’”  
A wave of sadness fell over the room, as the waves lulled the beach face. The moon above giving tides was constant, was an orb to both wave and Gem. It coaxed the waves to life, then lulled them again, a mother. To Gems, it gave them a sign to stop conquering. It was why they had a moon goddess, after all. In the deserts that composed Homeworld, before any civilizations were established, moons gave them light during the night, and therefore, survival. Every planet was theirs, but never moons. They could bar the planet’s inhabitants from going there, but the moon would be untouched. A sanctuary.  
“It’s nothing. Goodnight.”  
__________  
Steven didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do.  
But in that, he dodged every one of Pearl’s expectations. He didn’t punch the computer screen like Spinel had punched him, Connie smiling at his imaginary retribution. He didn’t shoot down any suggestions of him coming back to Beach City anytime soon. And, most of all, he didn’t blame Pearl, and neither did he blame his father, for letting this arrangement happen.  
But her being his sister? How long had he been gone from his family, from their lives? Nevermind that they apparently had a new addition!  
"Connie?"  
She was bent over the stove making malai kofta, a favorite of her father's, which, for a reason Steven couldn't quite pinpoint, gave him a twinge of guilt.  
But along with the guilt, it gave him an extra blast from conviction's bellows when he said, "I need to go back to the beach house. Do you think you could take over the next mission for me?"  
A wave pierced Connie, reminding her a little of the way the waves bit at her ankles back home, as she realized she liked him. She'd always felt this way, and, by all means, had always loved him as much as she did her family, but she hadn't seen evidence this obvious in a long, long while. She missed that. Turning off the stove and covering the food, she took Steven by the arm and embedded a decisive kiss on his cheek. "No problem."  
In a matter of a minute, she took along Lion and took along her own scabbard and breastplate, made her way to the lightpad, and with a burst of piezoelectric light from it, was gone.  
And it was then that Steven got that same feeling he would get when he was fourteen, that giddy, dizzying, carousel-churning feeling. He realized, for the first time in a long while, that he liked her just as much as she did. It flooded his blood with something more precious than rubies. Even diamonds, he dared.  
But what was even more daring was when he showed up to the public. Even beyond giving speeches...speeches tended to afford him a group of bodyguards, both human and Gem, should things get out of hand. Should he get hurt during the speech, there were medical personnel, mostly Gem this time, on the ready. But in the concrete jungle, so to speak, that was the capital’s sidewalks on the way to the city lightpad that could only be exclusively be found in the Gem neighborhood, there was nothing. Nothing except the courage that he wore like a windbreaker in a blizzard.  
Coming into the Gem neighborhood always cleared Steven’s head, although not in the way he thought it would initially. They’d set up a dense network of tempered glass with intricate sculptures and LED lights of all shapes and colors, telling of stories from the Gem war, as their barrier. But that was the only overtly grand part about it. The rest was grand, too, but in a way that made the human brain inside him hum and tick as opposed to his eyes.  
It was in the way that they’d adapted to the conditions the humans had set up for them. They were like bones, so dense, yet found their strength in their density. Pillars. Most had a greyish-brown brick-and-drywall space of 300 square foot or so per Gem, 350 if they were lucky and 250 if they weren’t, with one right above and one right below. It was the way that this reminded them of the fortresses back home, and to the Amethysts there, of the Kindergartens. It was the way that they took the sometimes-impossible-to-erase words, the awful words graffitied here-a-place and there and covered it with the most beautiful of Gem words, words for “laughter”, “hope”, “freedom”, “new life”, decorated with this and that variant of roses. It was the way that they all congregated together whenever they didn’t have to be indoors, mirrored life back in the fortresses in those wars long ago. It was the way they spoke almost exclusively Gem like back in the war, sang the songs that were sung back then, played the little games with no supplies involved, that told Steven that he had somewhat of a home here. Something perked up, stirred to action in Steven. Was it his mother-  
“Steven.”  
The word wasn’t said by anyone in particular. It was more like a ripple. Some were louder- those who’d seen him directly and wanted to say hello to him, hadn’t seen him step this way in months. The guilt rebounded on him, but the way they smiled, the way one of them fist-bumped him sent the guilt hissing back. The quieter ones asked for confirmation if it was him. Some stayed, some moved on. He was treated like anyone else.  
Not like a messiah. Good. Very good…  
He made his way through the pool of “Steven”s, greeted the ones he knew occasionally, before the ripple died. The biggest thing that happened is him being offered jablinky, a Gem variant of apple cider involving both brown and white sugar crystals that you needed to take your time and crunch on, savor.  
He stepped on the lightpad and stopped. Waited until a group of humans who were in a graffiti war on a particularly large piece outside made their attack.  
And took a breath.  
Before he finished the exhale, he was back home. The graffiti around him died, replaced by picturesque vendors, some he grew up with and some new, made almost artificial to please tourists' eyes.  
He had a much easier time walking home than Spinel had. Because it was the late morning, he even saw Lars, who was using his newfound Associate's to help run the donut shop he'd worked in for all those years. When he wasn't hurtling around the Milky Way and Andromeda at 60 thousand miles an hour being what the area kids called a "wicked space pirate", that is.  
"I've never thought about it before," he'd said as he handed Steven the customary on-the-house donut, "but I'm starting to use what I've done to tell scary stories. I'm getting really popular now!"  
"What you've done?" Steven was messaging Connie, asking how she was holding up.  
"Well, what you've done, more like. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't've been here to give you that donut, now, would I? I wouldn't be here at all."  
Well, if Lars was trying to get Steven's attention, by all means, he'd won. But if he was trying not to waste the donut he- his employer had made, then it backfired. With Steven's appetite, into the colossal trashcan designed for beachgoer waste it suddenly went.  
When he saw his "own personal lighthouse", like he'd say so often as a kid, turn up on the right, something different settled into him. Not dread, but doubt. Doubt about this entire place. Doubt that the driveway really was the same one his dad had taught him to ride a bike on. Doubt that he and his dad had really put in all those hours fixing the shingles, that it had been in this entrance that Bismuth had told them that surrounding a pipe cleaner with Epsom salt would do an impressive job as a drain scrubber.  
A layer of the dread melted away, while another layer came back twith twice the force when Spinel answered the door.  
“Steven! It’s been so long since I...wait, you’re my brother, arent’cha?”  
His head was enveloped. It was underwater. Whatever he felt this time, it was drowned by the waves outside. The waves. How long it’d been since he really heard these waves. All those other times, he’d been so quick to go inside and even quicker still to leave..  
“I...guess I am.”  
She looked at him. Squinted her eyes like a sandcrab under a microscope. “What do brothers and sisters even do?”  
He laughed a little. Memories of eighteen years of just the Gems, his dad, and him replaced the flood. His head was still underwater, but this time, the water was moving. It made him feel much more refreshed. Enough to laugh a little more. “I wouldn’t know.”  
He closed the door, knew the way it would stick a little and knew the exact place to put his hands to make sure it wouldn’t.  
“I wouldn’t know.”  
_____________  
Connie, of course, was fine. She’d almost finished the mission faster than Steven would. Or if she did, it was small enough for Connie to not bring it up after the first few weeks. She even encouraged Steven to actually stay for almost all of those first few weeks, almost all the way until Halloween at that point. And if he were honest, Steven almost didn’t know how much time would pass.  
Him and his dad did a few more gigs across Beach City, which again lit him with purpose as much as it did six years ago, when he didn’t have to worry about things like acne or marriage or whether or not he wanted a postsecondary education. Pearl seemed to be doing better and better each day, which Steven reveled in- as soon as he had to go back to the capitol, whenever that was, she’d probably go back in her shell again. He even scheduled an evening out with her that one of the tourists had actually arranged, but there was a mix of both anticipatory dread and anticipatory hope when Greg suddenly went out shortly after she did. And Amethyst showed him her new love of Galaga, although there was a certain unease to her that Steven couldn’t quite shake off.  
Garnet was Garnet, as always. Except she was under threat in more ways than one. The safe word with her was “unnatural”. It was the word that the humans around them seemed to love. First of all, the humans loved to use that word to describe Connie and his marriage, when from almost the very beginning, they didn’t think of him as anything more than a born-and-bred human. Now, he was an “extraterrestrial being entangled in a fraudulent, immoral marriage.” With any luck, they said, Connie would die horribly should Steven choose to have any children with her. And second of all…  
“They’re calling me unnatural, Steven.”  
A part of Steven wanted to reference just how tough she’d been before. How much of a fighter she’d been. Something like this wouldn’t bite at her now, wouldn’t they?  
“I don’t...I don’t know if we can stay fused at this point.”  
Ah. Now, he understood. And something told him that if Ruby or Sapphire had chosen to fuse with someone like Steven, or Greg, or Lars, or anyone like them, even that would be received better than Garnet was now.  
“But you c-”  
“I know, Steven. I know there’s too much at stake. I just...needed to say something. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”  
Over the course of those two weeks, Steven wondered if it would.  
Tuesday of the first week, they all went out on a limb and went to the town center to look at the murals the local art council had worked so hard on for both residents and tourists. Spinel was looking, looking at this one painting of a marigold, and in two seconds or so, both she and the marigold were ruined by a chucked bucket of yellow paint, of all things.  
That would’ve been embarrassing enough. It was embarrassing enough for her to come sprinting down the sidewalk, revenge plastered on her face and smile, looking, just looking for the bastard who’d thrown the paint at her. It took ten seconds for them to find her and get her to stop before she covered the entire sidewalk in a trail of yellow paint. She’d came buckling to the ground, both crying out of her shame and because of her feeling like she was covered with “a bucket of dirt instead” for having sprinted up the sidewalk in rage. And that would’ve been enough. But in the middle of the night, after a good forty-five minutes in the shower, she widened her eyes before throwing up a little yellow, managing to clean herself and the pillow up, and going back to sleep after an hour of pure terror of what surprise this body would throw at her next.  
She was fine after that. Nobody talked about it. She made sure of it.  
Thursday, Steven and Pearl were both sitting in the living room, after having the noble idea of going through the attic and finding superhero comics, unopened by the time Steven was a kid, reclaiming and regathering memories of what the characters were and what they meant to both of them. That was before Pearl grunted in pain and yelled out, “Steven Quartz Universe! You are eighteen years old! I will not tolerate this kind of-”  
“What? Pearl, I’ve got both hands on the comic!”  
“Well, you must have thrown something on the side of my head, because how else would-”  
“Pearl, look at the window.”  
“And why would I-”  
“The window. Please, Mo- Pearl.”  
There was a hole in it, letting in a fraction of a whiff of the ocean breeze.  
“Something must have thrown it inside.”  
Before long, the entire Universe gang had gathered to the hole in the window, just bigger than Steven’s largest finger. Each of them had their theories has to how it got in.  
“Maybe it’s Mrs. Harrington again,” was Pearl’s theory. “She likes to mow some of the grass near here sometimes. It could be broken. Maybe it flung the rock here.”  
“Could’ve been the Diamonds!” was Spinel’s. “They all come from rocks! Maybe they want me back!”  
“I’d hate to say it,” was Garnet’s, “but this could be an attack of some sort.”  
At first, everyone migrated to the first theory. But after Amethyst made the call to Mrs. Harrington and got the voicemail that she was traveling to the Golden Coast for the fall, something made something deep in their heads shudder, just a little. But they eventually came to the conclusion that the “attack” Garnet was speaking of was less of something carried out by a formal armed force and more along the lines of someone young, or at least young-hearted, wanting to create a tiny “ambush” of their own.  
Becase Greg was a human, the most “pure-bred” one in the family, he was sent to investigate. See if whoever threw the rock left a trail or any evidence. And eventually, he did find a group of kids with a handful of rocks each and sharing article after article on how “crazy” the Gems were and all the enemies they’d brought and all the problems they’d caused to Homeworld. He tried his best to pose as a tourist, ended up having a knack for it from being surrounded by tourists so often during the summer. And he got a few snapshots. There were 5. Most of them were male. Most of their skins were cream-colored, like Greg and Steven’s, although there were a few others who were tanner or darker. And the tallest, the obvious ringleader, had copper-red hair and even a few dying freckles.  
Greg even got the privilege of having the ringleader speak to him.  
“Hey! A tourist-y bastard! Rides are on the other side of town! Fuck off!”  
______________  
Friday of that week, one thing happened.  
Garnet, who’d been quiet up until that point, spoke during breakfast.  
She turned towards Spinel. “Morning, Waffles.”  
Steven turned towards Garnet. “Say what?”  
And Garnet turned towards Steven. “Nothin’.”  
______________  
Saturday, it was the first time they went to the grocery store as a family. Their old grocery store had been bought out since Steven had his sixteenth birthday, transformed into a glorified convenience store. So instead of having the luxury on saving gas on the van, they drove out ten minutes inland, to Germanland, a slightly-bigger town.  
“It’s nice,” said Pearl, “although it’s more crowded than I’m used to.”  
Garnet chuckled a little, tapped her chest area. “Nothin’s more crowded than inside of here, I’ll tell you that.”  
For both Steven and Spinel, it was a new set of questions for them, with both of them circling around whether or not incidents like the Thursday one would be as common. Should they pack up their bags and move here? And should they tell Greg? The only thing that stopped Steven’s mind from branching out was the fact that he’d spent nearly his entire life back in the Beach City house...hel, he’d even been born, painful as it was, in the back of this van!  
Steven and Spinel found themselves physically coming closer to each other, but having a fairly fast recoil every time they found themselves doing so. They both supposed it was to get ready for a fight. Eventually, they realized that if they kept recoiling and slowly coming back, two springs, they wouldn’t get anywhere and decided to play a little game of “Never Have I Ever.”  
Originally, he wanted to expose her. To find out anything else wrong she may have done.  
Her reaction?  
“A game! I haven’t played a game in a while, haven’t I?”  
But as they played this game, Steven realized there was another one, and so did the rest of the gang. Most people carried on with their business, but some of them stared. One even pointed them out and started laughing, but was shushed in a matter of five minutes or so.  
Eventually, they started sharing. “It’s a little better than Beach City” was the general consensus.  
Steven had summoned bubbles since he was first a teenager, but he hadn’t realized that the entire time, they were living in a partial bubble of their own. People wouldn’t throw rocks at their windows all the time, or tease them all the time, or cause him and Spinel to be physically close enough to keep on telling things they allegedly never, ever did. People were kind. People were honest. People were fair.  
Of course, Steven already knew they were.  
____________  
Thursday of that next week, Connie was here, traded with Amethyst.  
If he noticed, he said nothing. “God, I’m so proud of you, Connie! Handling all of that on your own, that’s...that’d be hard for me, and all you’ve got is my scabbard and..you know...you!”  
“Thanks.” A little smile, but nothing to match Steven’s.  
Steven knew, and Steven pounced. “Hey, hey. You okay?”  
“Yeah. It’s just that...I wasn’t expecting you to react like that.”  
“Well, of course I’d react like that. You’re Connie, aren't cha?”  
“Yeah, I know. I understand. And...I want you to understand that I’m Connie, okay? I can do this stuff. I don’t want...an award show, you know?”  
“Ohhhhhh.” God, he’d been treating her so horribly. How could he have failed to notice how capable Connie was? How could he have failed to realize anything about her? “I understand. God, I understand now.”  
He moved towards her, let her put her hands on his hips, planted a kiss on her lips that lasted long enough for a full breeze to pass by and creak the door. She followed; as soon as she felt his head drooping and heard a flock of seagulls pass by overhead, she let him lay there, cover his face up to his eyebrows in her coat. He took a breath or two. God, he didn’t even know what laundry detergent she used, and the laundry room was in his own condo...  
“I’m so sorry, Connie. Baby.” He regretted the last word, but didn’t take it back. The voice was muffled; Connie took her left leg and half-kicked the door shut as much as she could without hyperextending it. “I’ve just...I’ve been so blind. The people around here are just so...trapped, I don’t know how to say it..”  
Her brows furrowed. “Ignorant?”  
“Yeah, ignorant.” He lifted up his face up to the middle of his chin. “And I guess I’ve just been...absorbing them. Y’know, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, Mars is the god of war and would probably conquer both Earth and Venus…”  
“I get it. I understand.”  
They stood, found a song in the breeze, swayed to it.  
And they both understood it all.  
_______________  
He didn’t even know Amethyst was gone until Pearl started becoming more than a little frantic about it.  
It had been three days since Connie had come back. He was going to make the call to the local police, more as a placebo for him than anything that would actually help her, but a little digging and turns out, she was in no danger at all. For now.  
Steven had noticed for a while that no new missions had popped up, but a little investigation found that they did pop up- they were just marked as done. And that was all Steven needed to know. There was no fear in it; he knew, he just knew there weren't any hackers waltzing into the Omnitransmitter anytime soon.  
For one, for what Amethyst was doing, she was actually doing it in a half-sensible way. She'd scrounged up the money and gotten herself into a decent hotel to stay for a few nights. She'd brought some extra money just in case, and made sure to shapeshift and cover up her still-purple skin in order to keep herself conspicuous.  
"Okay, lemme just say it," she'd say when Steven made the call to her. "The human army rejected me, so I'm doing what you're doing. If you don't like it, then come and get me."  
So Steven did. He had to.  
When he did, Amethyst had seemed to be her own battleground, or at least used to be. But her battleground seemed to be open, empty, nothing but a collection of weapons, bodies- Gem fragments, in her case. She'd let the missions accumulate since Steven had made the call, and was sitting on her hotel bed, unaware of the TV blaring at a fever pace into her left ear.  
Something was horribly wrong. Steven punched the power button on the remote before sitting beside her.  
"Amethyst."  
No response.  
"Amethyst. Amethyst. What are you doing?"  
She took a breath, had half a mind to stop when she realized the exhale sounded halfway like she was sobbing.  
"I met all the requirements. Worked out and everything. They rejected me. They didn't even say why."  
It was only then that Steven noticed. Noticed the indentations the marks had made on her arms, her neck, the top of her back, noticed the spare aggregation of crystal-like matter left on it as a side effect of her regeneration process.  
Steven knew.  
Steven knew that whatever was going to happen these next few months was going to be nothing short of hell.  
"They didn't even say why, Steven."  
Steven put a hand on her shoulder. Maybe, he thought, just maybe only his touch could heal her. The tears were dry. Maybe he could be a little bit of his mother again…  
"And afterwards, some of the other applicants came up and- and that's why I'm-"  
"Hey. You did good, Amethyst. You did good, alright? You did good."  
"Steven, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've done something different, shouldn't I?" Her voice tightened, cracked.  
"You did good. You did so good, okay?" His grip tightened a little; she didn't react. The hotel smell, familiar, invaded his nose.  
He could feel her shaking. He looked down, the same way she was looking.  
Whatever was going to happen these next months, it was going to be hell.  
"You did good."


	8. Season 6, Chapter 6: Zimna Kolei

Along with all the other important Gem festivals, one Crystal Gem festival acquired from ancient, pagan Earthlings is "Zimna Kolei". It translates best to English as "a cold turning", and it refers to both the moon, after its equinox, " turning coldly", if you will, towards the Earth, plunging it into cold. It also generally refers to the Earth turning cold. Most humans know this festival as the autumnal equinox.

Halloween night, with each Gem with traditional Homeworld garb serving as their costume, was the last night Steven stayed. There was a fairly tearful goodbye, a heavy-handed amount of promises Steven made to Greg and Greg to Steven, and just like that, it was over.  
Just like that.  
The doorman was still there, the condo still intact, which Steven was unutterably thankful for. The smells of cumin and curry, paprika and oregano greeted them hello, and for the first time in a long while, Steven thought of the condo as home. But to be certain, he and Connie checked every inch of it. Connie was about to dismiss Steven as overreacting until they thought to check the mailbox.  
Empty.  
"Empty, Frankie?" Connie asked the post office worker. He wasn't as beloved as the doorman, but they at least called him by the name on his badge. "We've been gone for a pretty long while, and it's not like we don't have a lot of contacts."  
"I know. I know." All Steven and Connie saw then was a growing mass of hair almost exactly the same as Steven's as he ran his fingers through it. "I'm sorry. I don't really have an explanation, but you're welcome to look."  
When they did look, it was empty, like Frankie had said. And when they confronted Frankie again, he, eyes bulging a little, told the couple he didn't know anything else about the matter and a slightly-coffee-and-grease stained piece of paper with his boss' number on it.  
They didn't waste a second of time calling her. They got a puff of air, a slight "hmph", and her saying, "Well, story is you do have mail. But it did have some...disturbing content that we didn't want others to come in and raise a hullabaloo over. Who was the person you spoke to earlier?"  
"Frankie." Connie looked back and, her instincts swelling, made herself completely sure there was no one following her.  
"I'll make sure to give him keys to the back room where we're keeping the mail. You can come up to him tomorrow mornin' and we can sort this out, alright? Take care, now."  
The next morning, they found a mess, a complete tangle of thornbushes and bullets, in front of them that no amount of PR recognition would be able to sort out. Strewed on the desk in the said back room were letters with red envelopes, mostly, but some orange envelopes and a few white envelopes here and there, about 30 in total. For a moment, Connie and Steven wondered if any of the mail workers would read them first, but a quick look at the what the envelopes had drawn on them made most everything make sense. There were ameteur, no doubt. But it still sickened Steven and Connie, who even then had an hour-long discussion of when, what horrible things will happen, what will miss if we have children. There was a drawing of the letter-owner hanging a cripplingly drawn Steven on one of them, the other of Connie being a victim to a firing squad. One had Steven spitting snakes from his mouth and then turning into murderous Gems, the other had Connie being drowned in the river near the capital. This continued.  
30 times each.  
Steven and Connie said their thank you despite it all, although Steven would be lying if he said he didn't have fun taking each individual letter and shredding them by hand and by summoned scabbard. With one, however, he took the time to inhale, to draw breath, air, blood to his head, to the half-brain that needed it, and write down a composed response to who he assumed was the ringleader by all the letters he'd sent.  
But what was even more terrifying was the mail that did get past the mail workers. The next day, there was a letter from mayoral candidate Kiante Boyd, The Great Fixxer-Upper of the New Decade. No aliens, he promised, and we'll keep everyone safe that way.  
"You have an agenda. I have the perception to see right through your falsehoods, your so carefully-placed exaggerations. I will have you know that I currently have over 89 percent of my constituents who intend to place their vote in my favor during the upcoming election. If you've read any of my brochures, then you will know my standpoints on an issue that affects every one of us. Having extraterrestrial brings inhabiting the same territory that we fight to keep in the sacred bonds of liberty will threaten the very values we hold dear. What is not natural is therefore not beneficial, and we've seen this time and time again, and most recently in the global havoc the toxins injected into the planer's core have wreaked. I will not compromise the safety of my constituents. Let me assure you that I have every intention of rather compromising yours."  
____________  
"Steven, should we think about moving?"  
"What? Of course not, we're needed here!"  
It was a clear, crisp evening when they decided to "take a breather", as Greg would say, on the uniform back porch. Crisp enough you could taste the city's ambition. Traffic rolled. Traffic slammed. Traffic screamed. But nothing could sway and swing away the night from both of their eyes.  
"Connie...it's more like...I'm not sure. And it's not like I don't want to do anything close to wimping out on you or anything like that. It's just that...it's been crazy. Forget I said anything."  
"No."  
Steven reacted the same way Connie would if Steven were to say no. "What do you mean?" A synonym for "give me some evidence here."  
"No, I'm not to forget you saying anything. And you're not a wimp if you have a good reason."  
"Do I have one?" God, he was so stupid.  
"I dunno, do you have one?" God, she was so stupid.  
They stayed there for a long while. Not only to listen to the traffic or take in the night, but mostly to take in each other. They were more important than the night. They were more than the stars and moon to each other. But they didn't have to be touching in order to do that. At times, all Connie had to do was to sprint away from Steven, grab the edge of the back porch's bars, and laugh, wildly, before sitting. But the rest of the time, each other became the air they breathed.  
And Steven took a big, long breath before he spoke. “Well, turns out I have one.”  
He took another. Another. There was the sound of at least five cars honking simultaneously. None of them reacted- such was life in the capitol- but it caused Steven’s eyebrows to furrow and his face to twist in stress and his fingers to run through his hair in the same way Frankie did, and all Connie could think of doing was to brush his hair back for him. He looked at her. Looked at her the same way she was dressed on her wedding day. And he took a final breath.  
“In fact, I have more than one. There are at least 20,000 Gems living in here alone, and every time I head to the neighborhood, it somehow gets worse and worse. The humans invent new words and new ways to make the Gems look...less than great. In fact, when I was buying you that ring, I had to look long and hard in Beach City to find a jewelry store than wasn’t going on boycott already.  
And Beach City...there’s even more, when talking percentages and all, in Beach City. There’s, what, 6,000 people living there?”..it was the first time he used the number 6,000 when Spinel was nowhere in the room… “...and there’s 600 Gems living there. 600. If you hated them, you know how hard it would be to take your mind off of them?”  
“That’s not the point, Steven.”  
“I know that’s not the point, Connie. My point is that they don’t have it as well as the Gems here. And from what you and I have seen, the Gems here don’t have it well at all. Before...before you were finished with the missions, and you did so well… crazy things were happening to us almost every day. We got paint thrown at us, rocks thrown at us, sometimes fists thrown at us...basically anything they had in their hands, they had to give to us, too.”  
Connie nodded. And no one talked for a long while, not until a barking dog being walked below that Gems weren’t “reasonably in sound mind” to own brought them back to life.  
“Is that all?”  
“There’s just one more thing. Connie...you saw Greg now, right?”  
“Of course I did, he’s a second father to me! Both by the law and by how many times I’ve been there…”  
“Then you saw how much he’s in pain. He’s 47 now, although what’s been happening has been stressing him out so he looks… I dunno… 60. Before I left, all he had was hair loss and a-”  
“Paunch?” She could barely keep herself from bursting out in laughter the way she did when Steven and her were 12.  
“I was going to say...nah, forget it. Paunch it is!” He couldn’t keep himself from laughing.  
“Anyway, Connie..besides that, I remember how he used to act when I was a kid. My first memory of him, he’d bought a home gym and was letting me crawl all over it while Garnet tried to act all tough and carry all the weights at once. But even she had to leviitate it, and-”  
“Steven?”  
“Right, right. Sorry. But now, he...I can see the way his fingers don’t move right when he wants to tie his shoes. And I’ve seen the way that Pearl does it, and it’s the same way you do mine. She gives him the same look you give me. He has eyebags the size of that streetlamp, way over there. He sits down longer and wheezes more than he used to, and...that’s all. I’m just scared, alright?”  
“Steven.” She put a hand on his shoulder, the same old way she did whenever she had to say his name more than once. “I’m...not going to lie and pretend everything’s going to be alright. And I know your dad doesn’t believe in anything, and I’m not going to force religious stuff on him just because I’m Hindu. So all I can do is...encourage. Because if anything, encouragement is what he needs. And Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are the queens of encouragement, am I right?”  
“I suppose so.”  
Just to make sure, Steven pushed aside his missions for the first time he could remember and gave Dad a video chat in order to give him a dose of that encouragement.  
I suppose so.  
He climbed into bed and fell asleep.  
___________  
It happened the next day, when Steven had just wrapped up his missions for that day. November 15th. The literal universe had been kind to him, given him enough missions to come home an hour early. Steven and Connie were doing their best to prepare for their respective families their Thanksgiving meals, with Steven making crab stuffing with the same recipe his father and him made every year, Connie making a mix of bread and chutney. As always, Greg insisted he would provide the turkey. Both turkeys.  
It was in the air that Steven first tasted it. First breathed it into the lungs Rose had formed for him.  
“Connie.”  
“What?” She was laughing, trying to fix a slipup on the oven timer. No, she wasn’t stirring the chutney mix for fifty minutes.  
It was in the air that he first felt the instinct to tense up, to move, to do something.  
“Connie, get down! On the floor!”  
“Wha-”  
And just like that, their entire world changed. It came through the back window- it would be foolish of them to try to get past the high level of security in the lobby. Connie and Steven were barely on their bellies, the oven’s hot breath breathing onto Connie’s legs, by the time the first ten bullets wreaked havoc on the kitchen. Steven screamed, clutched his Gem for dear life, as there was a too-short pause and the next ten blasted through the cabinet, piercing clothing and drywall and pictures. They heard at least two of them smash, and it was all Steven could do not to sob.  
They heard a few insults shouted by a woman’s voice, and that was all.  
They stayed there for God knows how long. The first thing they heard was the sound of police sirens out back, the sound of the night collapsing in and around them.  
Three knocks blared. They knew it was the voice of the building’s security officer.“Open the door!”  
___________________  
Just in case, Steven and Connie were taken to the hospital, even though the only thing that happened was Connie being on the edge of vomiting from stress.  
Afterwards, they tried an investigation of their own, although it took weeks to find who the suspect actually was through analyzing the bullets that had gutted their home and diving into the murky alleyways where they might have been sold against the law and who the vendors’ clients may have been. That narrowed it down to about fifty by the time Thanksgiving popped up. Before December began, they would identify the suspect as Mattie Hoagland, a fairly well-known anti-Gem extremist, although it took no small amount of demand from humans to finally give her the sentence of three years behind bars, not four, because of the husband and daughter she was being “deprived” of.  
It was just before Thanksgiving that he made the decision.  
“That’s it,” declared Steven as soon as the police no longer needed his possessions in his home the way they were when the shooting happened, down to the food. Steven and Connie had passed the time from hotel to hotel, denying the kind offers of those from the Gem neighborhood offering them their home, knowing that would leave that Gem nowhere to go but outside. “We’re going back to Beach City.”  
Connie was a little angry Steven had made the decision, but knew she would’ve made the decision herself had he not done so for her. Steven apologized, but they nevertheless began the two-day-long project of moving their items to the moving van, saying a last goodbye to the still-terrified hotel workers and the still-hopeful Gem neighborhood.  
They were over the Bay Bridge when they realized that Steven and Connie weren’t at a very socially acceptable age to be moving into their parents’ homes anymore. They were known, whether in the capitol or not, as big shots. By 18, they said, they were already married and in a competitive diplomatic position. Stepping down from that could mean things like this would only happen more often. So Connie already formulated concrete plans about the immediate future, with Steven making abstract plans about the years ahead. Connie had already scheduled for them to rent in an apartment precariously close to a tourist trap, but Steven told Connie of a plot of land, empty, near Greg's home. How strange it would be living so close to his now sister.  
“We should do something about all this, Steven.”  
“I know. We could try talking to them, or holding informational sessions, or-”  
“That’s not going to work. You know it won’t. See, Gems are swayable, but humans?”  
"I know. I just...don't want to be the cause for anyone getting hurt, that's all."  
They were silent for the rest of the time Connie drove.


	9. Season Six, Chapter Seven-Utoniecie

Utoniece- "Drowning"

Steven was on the verge of telling himself that the only reason their unpacking in Beach City was quicker than the unpacking back in the capitol was because his friends were helping him.  
But during the time from the local Día de Los Muertos festival in the church his father's friend went to until the day when the biggest protest in awhile started, what he felt confirmed what he thought from the start.  
He'd missed this place, through and through. And it wasn't simply because he was living in a place that most people in the country only thought of as a place to dutifully spend their vacation days. And it wasn't just for the waves in the back, privatized, that his father taught him how to ride on with a boogie board when he was a kid. Neither was it for the hot dogs he swore came from above, or for the street performers that seemed to only come during the summer and scurry off to God knows where during the fall. It was for something more buried in his subconscious, something more along the lines of how he experienced his mother.  
She was there. There in the way the air tasted here, the way the breezes blew at his armful of black hair, at banners, at beards, the way they passed by his cheek and told him, in their own voice, that no matter what he did, he would still somehow be the same Steven he always was. She was there in the way others would laugh, the way they sounded more golden, more honey-coated here than they did anyplace else.  
And she was there...there in the arresting, the lucid, the always ecstatic sunset.  
And finally, she was there in the way his friends were, the way his father had instructed him to paint when he was younger, how he told him never to go against the grain. How his father told him later that, in some things, it was alright, it was even the right thing to do to go against the grain. How that was, in some part, what Steven was.  
She was there in the way that Spinel thought she was in Steven. There in the way her eyes exploded with light when she looked at him.  
“Greg, Pearl!” She whipped back, let the screen door hiss and close. A memory flapped, as it always did, in Steven, to a day the door was just installed when he was barely 4, how he screamed when it first made the noise. “Everyone! He’s back, he’s back!”  
“Woah, chill out there, Spinny, who’s-”  
Amethyst was the second one to go to the door. She opened her mouth, was at the cliff’s-edge of saying something, anything, but covered her mouth. She looked like she was swallowing something. “Steven, I didn’t think you’d ever-”  
Greg was the third, with Pearl just on his heels. Greg was the one to burst the door open, his eyes with a mixture of pure, love-imbued joy and disbelief, the thought that this was all surreal as he burst out and hugged his son.  
“My grown-up son, right here” was all he said.  
Pearl was a little more reluctant, but was still the one to let Steven in before everything she’d been hiding and holding for the past months folded in on herself and out towards Steven. The way it always did. It was alright, wasn’t it? Steven had always held her tears, and everyone’s, the way he did now.  
It was just the way things were, wasn’t it?  
__________________  
November 3rd was not only filled with packing bags; it was also filled with group after group of people who had a fire inside, people who figured it was better to curse the darkness than light a candle when it came to their opinions on things. People who seemed that the Gems were out to kill them, people who thought it was best to kill them back, or people who thought it was mercy that they didn’t kill them back.  
People who ended up etching the word “mutt” on the front door while Connie and Steven were sleeping. They hadn’t even had a proper bed set up yet. Connie and Steven were content to pull out a few of the blankets, go to the living room, be paired with nothing softer than each others’ hair and hands.  
“Mutt”. A single word all but erased that memory.  
“Connie, I don’t-”  
Connie sprinted to the storage room. She took the sander, sanded the area that the horrible word had spread across. Before she went to the store to buy a decent shade to paint over the area, she glanced back at him.  
“Mutt”. That was the word for people like him, as far as he knew. He’d heard it a little in the capitol, but had heard it tossed around like an ill-timed bag in the waves shortly before he left Beach City.  
“Mutt”. A mutt wasn’t human or alien.  
A mutt was worse.  
He considered picking up the phone, calling Greg, Pearl, Spinel, his friends. But he couldn’t. He saw the way Greg smiled when Steven did, the way Spinel’s laugh timed in almost-perfect sync with Steven’s. He saw the warmth in Pearl’s heart when he allowed her to help him out, the way he allowed her to be a mother again the way he did all his life.  
But he made a halfway-strategic call, making sure to call Garnet before calling Amethyst so his family wouldn't know. Before long, the both of them were at his house, Connie arriving a few minutes later.  
“Good idea, Steven. This would’ve taken all day with just you and me.”  
They made more trips to the store, set up ladders, painted over the “M”. They decided to take a break after each letter, although Connie found her arms were shaking after the “U”. So Steven stabilized her shaking arms as she painted, although she told him she was fine after just a few seconds.  
It took an hour, quick as the quicker-than-lightning the town usually had, for them to finish.  
“So…” said Amethyst, her hair matted with paint, “why didn’t you tell Mom and Dad?”  
“What?”  
“Greg and Pearl. Sorry.”  
“They’re not my- alright. But you know why. You saw the way they looked at me, didn’t they?”  
Amethyst nodded. “I guess I’m just...not really used to how things are going. Everyone else has been used to Spinel being here, y’know? I mean...I call her Spinny, but that’s it. She’s the one who started calling them Mom and Dad. Ah, God, this is turning into a therapist session. You don’t mind me putting it out there like this, right?”  
“No, not at...not at all, Amethyst.” His default response.  
“Alright. But more than her, I guess I miss...y’know....you.”  
“I’m right here. You took ten minutes to walk here, didn’t you?”  
“I know. I know. I just-”  
Steven knew what she was “just”. She just wasn’t used to his feet , no matter how little or how big they were, not pattering on the floors. She wasn’t used to the way he wouldn’t be walking down the stairs. She wasn’t used to the way how he wouldn’t be the one to take the Santa hat during Christmas time. The list went on and on, but all he did was reconcile it in a breath.  
“Hey. It’s just been two months since I left, right, Amethyst?”  
She nodded.  
“It’ll be fine. You’ll get used to things.”  
Things flashed through Steven’s head. Things like him and Connie ducking on the apartment floor while the bullets wrecked the pantry door.  
It’s just been 2 months.  
And I’ll get used to things.  
________________  
November 4th was Election Day.  
“You going out, Steven? We’re running low on food…”  
He stared at the signs blaring at him posted on the neighbors’ backyards. People who’d left him notes that still kept him up at night.  
“Not the best idea.”  
They went to the couch, put on some movie or another, settled into each other.  
“This is a better idea.”  
And Connie laughed, and oh, God, if only Steven could hear that forever...  
______________  
November 5th to November 9th, Spinel had her first cold. She shared the joys and sorrows, the whoops and the whips of what it was to be human. She went through the hoops Steven went through, but at a younger age. Steven thought it would be better to go out today, to go to the store and get a few extra soups. He fired the stove, made one, went back over to his home. His real home.  
Pearl took the soup, placed her fingers on her temples. “I forgot how sick humans can get.” She laughed. “One time, you ate three cans of this stuff. You didn’t ask for anything from The Big Donut the whole week!”  
When he walked into her room, her self wasn’t bouncy or taut anymore.  
“Steben?” She blew her nose.  
“Yeah?”  
She tried to swallow, coughed it out instead. “I can’t breathe. I think I’m drowning.”  
“Yeah, I know.” He patted her shoulder. “It’ll be alright, sis. Just wait. It’ll get better. Sometimes, I feel like that too.”  
He smiled. Good ol’ Amethyst. She’d rubbed off on him at just the right moment.  
_______________  
November 10th, Connie fiddled with a chunk of drywall coming off. “I’m tired.”  
“You need a nap? I bought another sheet to warm you up last week.”  
“No, not like that.”  
Steven knew it was best for him to sit down and shoo away any other plans for the hour.  
Since then, him being somewhat of an intragalactic vigilante had slowed down in lieu of him trying to take care of tensions between Gems and humans. That one word, “mutt”, had given him a new pace. But that wasn’t to say he wasn’t going at least three-fourths of the pace he was before. But it was still nothing short of a wonder that he was able to watch a movie with Connie on occasion, or able to make his sister soup during her first time sick. Now, he had about a half an hour before he left to help settle a trade dispute on an eastern part of Kepler-62f involving a 62-foot tall, sky-blue lizard who could swallow up the whole eastern seaboard if he wanted to. He let Connie know of this fact; she nodded, but nothing more.  
“I’m tired of all of this bouncing around, back and forth. There’s part of me that wants to be normal.”  
If Steven voiced himself now, said how he wanted to be normal along with her, it would be selfish, wouldn’t it? Childish at the least. A very tiny part of him boiled at the fact, but, thank God, was just a simmer. Barely noticeable.  
“This is all empty air. But I just want to be someone…a teenager who just graduated high school, who likes space, who’s trying to apply for colleges. I...I want you, by all means. But I...maybe want a different lot in life.”  
She smiled. But he could tell that tears were simmering in her own eyes, and one trailed down. In a flash, he saw map after map of Sri Lanka, shown to him during their childhoods in Connie’s bedroom, a teardrop just a few hours’ flight away from where she lived.  
“But I’m not going to get something just because I want it, don’t I? That’s the point of all this. The point of all- ah, nevermind, Steven. It’s almost time for you to go, isn’t it?”  
“Nono, keep on going. It’s fine.”  
“The point of all the tension. One wants something, the other side wants another. The humans want the planet to be safe by not having Gems, the Gems want the planet to be safe by having Gems. Or for themselves to be safe from the Diamonds. Except both sides- although I’m sure the humans are more of the guilty party in this- aren’t aware of something that might change what they want, or at least make them realize that what they want isn’t all that’s cracked up to be.”  
She took a breath, and all of Steven’s world was compressed in that breath.  
“And I’m realizing that- I don’t want to leave, don't get me wrong- but I’m realizing that this wasn’t all that was cracked up to be.”  
______________  
Steven didn’t think about it then until Veteran’s Day.  
They always kept it quiet in Little Homeworld, with all of them congregating instead to Steven’s house. There, Gems from every background would pour their souls out onto the ground and tell their stories, and some of the ones whose minds weren’t too shattered reenacted some of the more important battles. Although it was by no means Steven’s favorite day when he was a child, his age giving him his more pacifist beliefs, it was always something for him to look forward to.  
“There was a war while I was gone?”  
“Yes, Spinel.” Pearl whipped together a batch of piezoelectric devices, the closest the Gems could construct to be instruments. They were made of crystals, nonliving, scraped from the planet’s ground, and simply pressing on something made electricity, which in turn, made sound.  
“I’m sorry.”  
She took the instruments. Squeezed them closer to her chest. Stared at the water. Stared at the floor when she realized she was staring at the water the same way she’d always see Rose doing at the end of every bad day.  
“So am I.”  
For Greg, it didn’t stir up too many memories. It was impossible for him to have memories of anything that happened before the mid-seventies, after all. But, if he could ignore the crushing weight of his wife inviting him to come out and celebrate the war he’d barely studied, let alone been a part in, he was just left with this feeling of dread. This feeling that some year, somehow, someone would make it so all of this couldn’t be celebrated.  
But he was the first one to notice how a middle-aged man with a black beard and almost ivory-white skin went to the edge of the property line, peeked, shouted back, ran back, and all was still.  
And he was the last one to forget.  
Connie was the first one to come, almost bouncing with delight when asking what she could do. Her parents, very understandably, didn’t want to send their child to one of the largest Gem celebrations in months, especially with its theme.  
Four hours later, Steven was greeted with something the Gems liked to call “oprajmozc”- something familiar, but elaborate. There was Pearl and Greg together in the kitchen, making a mix of jalinky and barbeque. But Steven’s mind flashed; he remembered spending hours when he was 8 trying to somehow get off the mark that had been left on the table by the barbeque food’s heat.  
There was everyone in the living room, a cohort of ten or so Gems who knew Steven the best, showing off Bismuth-swords made for the day, obviously made of plastic. They jumped in sync, the chaos of piezoelectric violins and drums playing in the background, and snarled the Crystal battle cry. They all then came together and exploded in festivity.  
But Steven’s laugh was a little more nervous.  
Because the entire time that they’d done their demonstration, made Steven feel that forbidden feeling of being a child again, he noticed someone toeing the property line.  
He was about to excuse himself, but he knew the Gems’ eyes would follow his.  
“Who the heck is that?” said Amethyst, being the first to drop her sword.  
The music danced in the house, spun Steven around as he tried to look.  
There were five or six of them now, with three of them clambering up the hill. By the looks of it, their skin was all as creamy as his. He saw only a few that he could point out as women from here; most looked to be about his dad’s age, although he saw two or three “littles”, according to Greg, that held onto an older adult’s hand.  
He didn’t even notice what they were holding until Peridot wondered what weapons they were going to use to counteract the humans’.  
The dread turned into a spinning hurricane, the Gems playing the piezoelectric instruments waltzing into the fortissimo of the piece…  
There was a knock on the door.  
“STOP!”  
Steven’s throat scolded him. For the first time in awhile, Steven was looked at as, and felt as if he were an alien, even in the presence of aliens.  
“Stop. I’m sorry. I’ll just...go get the door.”  
By the time he went to the door, Greg had already beat him.  
All he heard was the man’s voice, and all he saw was the upside-down sign with blaring red text.  
“...you’re taking away our right to this day, ‘s if taking our jobs wasn’t enough. We’re celebrating our patriotic duty, but your....these things have caused us more harm than they have good! You know how many of us fought in Vietnam? Korea? Iraq? Huh?”  
Everything in Steven doubled back; his eyes dilated to the point of Bismuth even asking if he was alright.  
“I’m fine, Bismuth. But just...you need to leave. Leave now.”  
She looked to the left and to the right. The air of celebration was dying a little now. Some were drawing their stories to a close just as they got to its crucial point. She didn’t know whether it was better to sheathe her sword, the only real weapon in the house, or leave it drawn.  
“Alright. I believe you. But I won’t be the one to spread mass panic.”  
He smiled. “I wasn’t planning for you to.”  
Lapis and Peridot were the ones who were looking for Bismuth, and Steven hesitated before telling Peridot. For the first five minutes, Peridot panicked, Lapis flapping her hands and trying everything she could to get her to stop, telling at least eight more Gems what Steven had said. Steven grimaced, sucked in a breath full of air as the Gems went to him, asking if this was true.  
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. But we need to keep it quiet, OK?”  
Something more from the door. “...well, we’re just about TIRED of it, if you’d ask me. And we won’t be pushed ‘round anymore…”  
So Steven made his way around the house, half sprinting, smacking his hip on the corner of the wall. He held it and winced while dodging every single “are you alright”, telling them the same thing. “All of you need to leave. But keep it quiet. Out of the back door.”  
And by the time the protestors had moved to the back door and locked Steven out from his terrified family indoors, about 60 percent of all the Gems were safe back at home.  
It lasted forty minutes.  
Steven wanted, with every inch of his being, to lash out. But he was used to keeping that contained now.  
But other than being a buffer, a barrier, even summoning his shield for the bigger Gem crowds, he was also the wave that was hitting the buffer. He darted into the crowd, even used his shield to shove them, too, out of the way, having insult after insult hurled at him, punch after punch being targeted at him. By the second time he did it, the words “mutt from Mars”, the new phrase people thought it would be fun to call him, spun around in his head again. And he only stopped the third time when someone with glittering teeth and a faded red t-shirt punched him the same place in the nose that Spinel did. He heard a sickening, pounding crunch that turned his world into blurry lights. He stepped back, cried out. The Gems around him all gathered, made concerned half-yelps, and he summoned everything he could to let the tears fall. By the time the tears made it to the grass and disappeared, so did the pain.  
“Steven.”  
He looked up, felt a mask around his lip from what what’d managed to bleed from his nose, wiped it.  
“Garnet! Thank the Lord! How’d you get out here?”  
“That giant shield you have? I’m much the equivalent of that.”  
“Right, right.”  
“Come on. We’re not safe here.”  
“And neither are all the Gems still here.”  
She made the same “hmm-mmm”, the same hand-tilt, that she always made whenever mulling something over. “Alright. As long as you don’t keep too far out of my sight. You know how Pearl and Greg will feel if I leave you behind.”  
“Pearl and Greg?” Something tightened in him, pulled him up to the Big Dipper floating above.  
“What?”  
“Before, you’d always say…’Pearl’ or ‘Greg’, not ‘Pearl and Greg.’”  
“Nobody told you, did they?”  
“Told me what?”  
She paused, acted like she was holding a whale down inside of her. “We should focus, Steven.”  
“Right. Right.”  
He pulled out his shield, still feeling the same ever-pressing tug, still doing the same thing he would have done if this had happened seven years ago.  
It was midnight before this hell was completely cleaned up. The house was kept from being ransacked as much as possible, but it still took hours to clean up, even with everyone helping, with the exception of one. Greg had gotten away with only a few bruises, but the fact that he’d gotten one on his leg made it all the more pronounced. Connie, Greg told Steven, had managed to get to the van in the back and drive home in a mad dash before anyone else could even think to call her name. Keep her, Greg told Steven.  
“Spinel?” Greg this time, although Pearl must’ve been halfway across the room when she started coming on Greg’s heels. “You okay? You’ve been breathing like that for awhile now.”  
The way she was breathing reminded Steven of the rabbit that was part of the petting zoo one year during the summer on the boardwalk. He was the one to sit down, to put his hand on her far shoulder, to even brush the pigtail that flopped in his face instead of putting it behind his back after a bit.  
“This…”  
That was all the words they got out of her for half a minute. The other half of a minute, they found a more dutiful, newer Gem that had just immigrated a month ago and told her that the mess inside was worse than the one outside for now.  
“This was what Homeworld was like.”  
Greg said nothing else, but it was as if a latch were unlocked to Steven. Memories of being thousands of years under their control, of the amount of riots that had been crushed with the effort of only a few Quartzes. The Gems were shattered, the shards swept to the streets like they were dust from the weapons the Bismuths forged…  
Garnet turned to the Gem. “Is this true?”  
The Gem turned pale, if she could, and nodded.  
_________________  
“Rose, what am I doing? What the hell am I doing?!”  
She didn’t know what the hell she was doing, either. She’d sequestered herself to one of the buildings that were closed in the summer, knowing the owner was an old woman who could do little more than politely ask her to leave, given her personality. Rose only seemed to speak to her that way- when she was away from Steven, away from the influence of anyone or anything that could affect her subconscious. That could affect the message.  
But that didn’t explain why she was shaking, or the fact that she’d dare to kiss him, kiss the man that she’d been, in a sense, been courting since the first day Steven was alive, even if she hadn’t known it. They’d been friends, but it gave her a thorn in her chest or her side each time they did something, anything, that was similar at all to the way Rose interacted with Greg.  
It was, in a sense, why she’d ignored him the first month of Steven’s life.  
She cried out, but only because the way it echoed across the empty shelves and poster-free walls reminded her of how strong that battle cry used to be back in the war. It couldn’t be like this. Wouldn’t be if she could help it. But how could she help it? Spinel hadn’t been gone from the palace for even two months. She sat down, ran through the sand-pattered roads of town in her mind; the pearl on her forehead hummed, very quietly, in the dead silence. She could somehow evacuate Spinel, take her to one of the beach houses before taking her further inland and living in one of the townhouses there. But with what money? Greg would know. The fact that he was slaving at the car wash would make him especially know. And with Steven’s? She couldn’t bring herself to do that. Not after having lesson after lesson with him on being honest, even when it doesn’t benefit you.  
And Spinel would never forgive her. She’d think that Pearl forced her to be away from everyone else at the house.  
Pearl shook. Shook out a breath.  
“Free me from this.”  
That’s all she had to say. The ever-seeming-to-pick-up winds blew and battered at the door.  
“I don’t want to be where you were.”  
Well, Rose seemed to say, it’s not like I’m here to be what I was, isn’t it?  
“I know.”  
She lowered herself to one of the cardboard boxes left over, situated herself until she was finally comfortable.  
I’m not here to be what I was.  
And that was the part that made her shake one more time, and make the tears fall.


	10. Season Six, Chapter Eight-Obiety

They spent the first half of the next day cleaning up wheatever they couldn’t yesterday, having been robbed of the time by their need to sleep. Once those who needed to went to bed, Pearl and Garnet tried cleaning up a little more, but Pearl eventually found it awkward and started going between hiding in her room, weighing the pros and cons of calling Steven and Connie at this hour, and helping Spinel not feel so confused as she tried to fall asleep. Garnet stayed until the crack of dawn, but everyone knew from the start that this mess was beyond one or two people.  
November 21, however, was a different story. Connie mentioned to Steven that the Omnitransmitter was quickly filling up with missions, but Steven repeated to her how they were all optional. He then got out his laptop and started to type.  
“Steven! You can’t just spend your time going on the Internet and-”  
“It’s different, Connie. Look.”  
Connie took the time to look, the moonbeams stretching over her eyes the same way he noticed when they were playing together as pre-teens.  
He was typing a speech.  
___________  
He tried the easiest level that evening, mainly as a rudimentary start. To see if he was reaching his audience with the content of the speech, to see if his voice was clear enough, blah blah blah. But more than that was the reactions the Homeworld Gems, ever more becoming secluded from the small concentration of the Crystal Gems, to him saying this.  
“Are you CRAZY?!” exclaimed Peridot, ignoring the way she was jumping a little. “Engaging the humans like this?! Man, have you got a death wish. Unless you take along adequate security with you.”  
“A death wish?” replied Lapis. “I wouldn’t say that. Actually, what you’re proposing isn’t half a bad idea. So long as you take along adequate security with you.”  
He bit his tongue. Jasper, despite the fact that she was still a hopeless case of introversion even with all the work Steven had been doing with her these past 2 years, would be the definition of adequate security. She looked the part, would do the part, and would most of all feel the part.  
“A few Rubies would sound nice, I guess” was all Steven said.  
Now, all that was left was to work out the scheduling, which would be one of the hardest issues. He’d not only have to find a way to fit an audience of a hundred or more...he’d also have to get it past whoever hed ‘d have to ask, or, better yet, find an open, public space. And, considering he’d be doing this all the way from Beach City to the capitol out west, along with more cities across the country if he had the time and things didn’t turn from bad to worse until then, he had more to do.  
All in all, it was the day before Thanksgiving, with Connie joking relentlessly how it was “Thanksgiving Eve”, by the time the first speech came. Steven decided to take it slow again and present in the space occupied by humans closest to the Gem settlement. He didn’t have much experience with speeches, but he had to. If he was going to be himself, if he was going to be half-human and half-Gem, then he was going to have to have some sort of political significance, even without all the tensions rising. And if he was going to be at least a marginally important local political figure, he was going to have to master the art of speaking loudly and clearly, channeling all the emotions he wanted to channel, all while surveying the crowd and making sure to improvise, or surge ahead, depending on their reactions.  
All of this he failed miserably at during his first time, but it was for the better than the worse. He doubled back when he should have gone full speed ahead, gone quiet when the crowd would’ve roared in applause for him if only he’d put one more emphasis on one more word.  
But that didn’t stop most everyone except for Connie, who was in the process of running her own political significance through her head, from cheering Steven on, even one in the upper middle class telling him of his “forensic prowess”.  
But by the time he went to sleep, calling his family one more time before they did, he wasn’t running through “forensic prowess”, or even what his political significance would mean should this become an international issue instead of something beyond the capitol and the eastern area of Maryland. Even beyond tristate. It was a panic for him. He’d been exposed to intergalactic affairs, but never something entangling the whole of his own planet.  
Even that he wasn’t running through.  
He was running through why he was made like this. How he maybe wanted a different lot in life, and why couldn’t he be something different, and why he couldn’t be a teenager who’d just graduated high school and was starting his freshman year in college.  
This was why he loved Connie. The more you spent time with her, the more she grew on you with her understanding.  
____________________  
Thanksgiving came and went, but it didn’t go as completely quiet. For the first half of the gathering, Steven hid from his more Gem-hating relatives and started planning one of his speeches, only coming out when a discussion upchucked to an argument between one of the relatives and the Gems.  
Uncle Andy, pilot hat and all, although a little frustrated at him not being able to land at the local airport because of the recent protests, had started from asking a question to having one of his brothers take up the question and somehow regurgitate it as something the Gems were doing that were inferior to humans.  
Religion. They’d had the overwhelming sense to switch to religion first.  
“And what, Christianity doesn’t matter?! WE don’t matter?! Just because we believe in one God?!”  
“No, no, that’s not what we said at all!” Amethyst cried out. “All we said was that we think having more than one god is more believable than just having one! That’s all! I swear-”  
Garnet interfered a little too late. “Amethyst. Let me handle this.” She threw a glance at Steven; Steven nodded, a signal to him that whatever came out of Garnet’s mouth would’ve come out of his. “We aren’t saying that any belief is any more or any less true or important than the other. We were trying to educate Andy. That’s all.”  
“What’re you trying to say now?!” exclaimed Andy’s brother. Andy looked at him, eyes wider than the length of his plane’s propeller. “You trying to say that Christianity isn’t any more important than whatever strange thing you believe in? You’re the one that fell away from us! You can’t treat us like this!” Andy dragged a finger across his throat, even looked back at the rest of them and offered to take his brother out.  
“Take me out?!”  
Steven had to get in the way of his pounce, but couldn’t stop Andy’s brother from knocking off Andy’s hat. Steven felt a few bruises come up on him, and he winced before summoning his shield. He knew all he had to do was absorb the blows. Each and every one. Eventually, Steven knew he’d tire himself out.  
Eight or so minutes later, Andy and his brother both eased themselves out the door. Steven slammed it, panted a little before locking it. Spinel sat, eyes wide and body a bit curled in on the couch cushion, although she couldn’t decide whether it was out of terror or fascination at something new.  
“I…”  
It was Pearl who stepped up first to him. Everyone else seemed to be taken over by the quiet. The waves made their crashes near the back of their house, tried to convince anyone to say something before doubling back and starting it all again.  
“I’m sorry, Steven.”  
He took a breath. Another. The weight of two worlds crashed on his forehead. But it was invisible; as long as that constant was there, no one else would have to know.  
“I am, too.”  
The rest of the night was spent putting away the food and organizing a plan. Steven wouldn’t have to go alone to his speeches, or stuck with a few Rubies or Quartzes he barely knew. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl offered to go with him, and they’d be what they were before, just four friends on a journey together, all trying to get the same thing done, and what a beautiful, golden journey it was going to be.  
_________  
The 26th, however, was much better than Thanksgiving. They all decided that they’d had enough of the protesting and wanted to go out as a family. By the time breakfast was done and over with, they’d come to a sort of consensus that they’d visit a mall. Not something small, somewhere where they could be easily targeted. Somewhere that took a considerable, but still a not-too-far drive. Somewhere like Charm City, whose mall was a town of its own and extended six some-odd miles. Somewhere where they could easily dart somewhere else if their plans suddenly changed. Something that was silly, even stupid at the heart of it, but a kind of stupid that was somehow above all the stupidity going on around them.  
An hour later, they were there, with lunchtime a little around the corner. None of them were used to the amount of cars crowding every single nook and cranny, the amount of people, so many people, walking here and there. None of them were used to the different types of people or the fact that none of these different types of people reacted to them any more than they’d react to themselves. And none of them, none of them, in all the different kinds of foods and languages and celebrations and layers of people and cars and buildings, would have pounced on Uncle Andy.  
They decided that the best thing to do, as even Garnet’s head swam with the amount of crowds rippling here and there, an ocean of all its own, was to stay together, at least for the moment. They looked at the brochure, while Greg stuttered over which place looked good and which place didn’t. Spinel was practically screaming at just how new and bright and strong everything was, which didn’t help those trying to plan. Eventually, they decided that the girls would head to the spa, secluded at the top level where the least amount of people were, while the boys would go and find the shoes to replace their falling-apart ones. Maybe they could find ones with a halfway marine design on it so they could blend in later…  
The top would be almost immaculately spaced-out, they imagined. But the trip up was nothing short of hell. The one elevator that existed for the whole mall could fit maybe ten out of the entire hundred-something-odd people that stretched down the hallway, waiting, blocking stores. Pearl and Spinel got the brunt of this when people tried to enter the store they were blocking, with Steven and Greg having the sense to step back.  
Once they were finally in the elevator, the roar mulled down to complete silence. It took everything in Spinel to keep her curiosity from exploding, and it was Pearl and Greg that kept a constant eye on her and kept her from doing that.  
When they were at the top, the pressure finally stopped on their heads, and they could finally sigh in relief.  
“You okay?” Steven asked Pearl, who looked as if her eyes were about to pop out of her head.  
“Y...yeah.” She looked down at Spinel, who looked at her with eyes wide as always, then Connie, then the rest of them. “C’mon, obiety.” The universal Gem word for “citizens” or “all of you”, better translated into “women”. The word stirred up memories of war speeches, of Rose rallying squadron after squadron, and a weight went off of Pearl when him and Greg walked to the shoe store.  
An hour later, the girls were outside and in hysterics at how Connie had tripped, knocked over a trashcan, and had the trash spill onto her, negating the work done in the entire hour. They’d taken a picture of Connie with the trash on her for prosperity. She’d never escape.  
Greg had finished talking to his son on the amount of responsibilities he was taken and just how his pride...his pride spread to the coast, and he was so joyous, and how did he ever deserve him….  
As Greg made his drive back to the Bay Bridge and back out into Delmarva, as the van occasionally groaned and creaked the way it usually did when it was full, as the members of the van turned the creaking into a funny little song, Steven could think of one thing and one thing only.  
Not the song. Not while his eyes were closed, not while he swayed to his own rhythym, not while Pearl took Spinel close to her and told her where things were and where we're good places to go if she were ever lost.  
It was the pictures in his pocket.  
__________  
November 27, there was no creaking in Steven's bed as he woke up, kissed his still-sleeping wife on the cheek. For a few moments, he just sat there and realized, on a level he didn't acknowledge before, just how beautiful she was. The way her hair was swept, albeit messy, the way the film of sleep was still on her eyes, the way her torso rose and fell, a violin being played. He didn't deserve this, any of this…  
He made another speech with Connie, this time to a more hostile region of Beach City, albeit "hostile" meant "neutral" at this point. Connie had volunteered to go over into more genuinely hostile parts of town, scope it out for later. Some received him with applause, some noticed him flush when he walk off. He wasn't loud enough. He wasn't...captivating enough. In a sense, he wasn't what he was supposed to be.  
His mind took a glance back to his home. Surely, everyone back home would be watching the speech. Greg and Spinel would be cheering on him no matter what the technicalities of the speech were. As for the ones that were with him, Pearl would take Greg and Spinel’s route. Amethyst wouldn't notice the technicalities, while Garnet would be keeping her comments silent. If there were small, but ever so mountainous flaws, he wouldn't be able to know. He wouldn't be competent. He wouldn't be what he was supposed to be.  
He'd better be soon enough.  
__________  
November 28th was when he made the speech in the hostile region of Beach City.  
It was hell. He recognized the people who'd protested his childhood home practically to the ground. He recognized the ringleader, with creamy skin and hair like dirt mixed in with chocolate mousse. But no one was hurt.  
That was all.  
__________________  
November 29th, the rest of the group heard about Steven’s escapade in the more hateful part of Beach City. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, who before now had been trying to fend off the crowds whenever Steven would do his speeches, looked as if they were prepared for anything. But Steven knew what preyed just behind their eyes. He knew they were screaming for it to stop, knew that if it weren’t for Steven being Steven, if it weren’t for Steven’s cause being Steven’s cause, they’d run along home.  
Almost as if Greg and Spinel heard them screaming, they came.  
They came. Amethyst couldn’t help but laugh aloud and give them a hug; Pearl and Spinel pooled their talents and made a midnight-snack dish for the full moon, the yanko bugini, that night, best translating into human languages as "the goddess' eye." They taught Spinel a yanko bugini dance that Steven had known since he was practically a baby and Greg learned in his mid twenties, where Steven would get in the middle of the crowd and spin while having the Gems jump and circle around him, with Steven touching each Gem's hand in an intricate pattern. Sometimes, Greg took Steven's place in the middle of the circle. All the while, the Gems would sing a pounding, leaping, rhyming Gem song about how the moon goddess helped them and how she always would, with Spinel stuttering through the newer Gem dialogue that had evolved while she was in the Garden.  
Amethyst gave him a noogie. He was the one to laugh this time; he looked up at the moon, wondered if it truly cared about him.  
And why it was letting him stay in this political tangle of twine.  
_________  
From then, things picked up. The 29th, he made a speech slightly west, in Germanland, before a surprise visit from his family the next day, half-purposefully running into them during the grocery store. When the month turned, he let himself go onto Steaktown, in central Delmarva. The second day of the month, he thought it would be best for him to try to leave Delmarva, only doing one more speech in Eastown, the town at the very edge of the Bay Bridge. Lars, Bismuth, Peridot, Sadie, and her spouse Sheph, who’d been married to her a year now, paid him a visit before he was shipped out, with Peridot, the flower girl as always, tossing him a bouquet of roses for good luck.  
It was when he left Delmarva on the third that month that the trouble started.  
He made the hasty decision of settling down in DC. From here, it’d been a little over a month since the gunwoman had made her attack on them, and nobody, Gem or human, had forgotten. Choosing to stay in a hotel near the Gem neighborhood was a double-edged sword- they had a connection to all these Gems, but in order to get into any major, necessary building, they had to trudge through some of the most Gem-hating people they could possibly met. Steven would often physically grit his teeth. The day the Gems wouldn’t have to face this was the day Steven could rest.  
The fourth of December was probably the best of all- he’d gotten his computer hooked up so he could videocall his family.  
The fifth to the eighth of December was when he made his slew of speeches. The first was greeted with cheers and screams of glee back at home from his family, it being right next to the Gem neighborhood. The second had a mix of cheers and jeers, while the third…  
The third had no jeers to speak of, but something happened.  
Something happened that made Steven call the venue in Charm City, tell them the speech was cancelled.  
His heart tightened.  
His body went into tumbles  
The world crumpled.  
Because he noticed a group of picketers in the corner, and one of them had a single word on it.  
“Biesmerchy.”  
“Death.”  
Not only death, but death that was unnegotiable. There was nothing Steven could do. No peace talks, no speeches, no compromises. The battle cry Gems would often say if they were distressed enough.  
“Biesmerchy” was what he repeated to himself, over and over in his head, until he began mouthing it in the middle of the night. “Biesmerchy.” “Biesmerchy. “Biesmerchy.”


	11. Season Six, Chapter Nine-Awaria

Afterwards, Steven’s mission not to be swayed by that ugly word was thrown off by the waves, soothed by them. The waves turned into Connie’s hand stroking through his hair. If she tried to start a conversation with him, he wouldn’t have known. Four minutes later, he was fast asleep.  
When he woke up that morning on December the 7th, what he found was his Omnitransmitter, overrun with messages. He was going to shove it off to the side like he did every day, him managing to prop it back on the table every night with the resolution he’d get to it sometime. But with a full month of speeches ahead of him, he decided to go one step further. Since it was a piece of equipment that was expensive even for a Gem, he wouldn’t go so far as to demolish it. Instead, he locked it in the spare bedroom’s closet and kept the keys on top of the door. Connie didn’t mind. Actually, her eyes seemed to light up a little when she saw Steven put the key at the top of the door.  
The next of that month was a flurry of speeches. All the important ones were finished; he didn’t dare do another speech on the side of the Capitol that was closest to the humans, let alone to the President that was oftentimes a large cog in the clock of all this trouble.  
December the 9th, where the locations of his speeches made a flank along the Capitol-Maryland border, it was Connie that a group of disgruntled humans decided to attack next, this time towards Connie. Do you know what hell you’ll put your children through, they said, and do you know what psychological harms that a marriage of your type will cause them? If you even try for children with Steven, one of them, a well-educated, otherwise soft-spoken man said, then you’ll die!  
Are you even human? cried out a group of ten or twenty of them, three or four of them raising up a sign saying the same thing.  
Are you human?  
Are you human?  
The cry rose up, rose like the sun did in its musty way on the Capitol’s shoulders every morning.  
She looked at Steven. Steven looked back at her, his hands practically shaking on the makeshift podium.  
And before Steven knew it, the love of his life was kissing him, and he was kissing her, and she was there and he was there, and that was all that mattered.  
December the 10th, they did suffer repercussions. But, as Steven would later find out, the kiss was more than a kiss. It weeded out those who did support them and those who wouldn’t. And he would later tell Connie that this would divide the two groups even further than they would now. Connie sighed, a sack of flour slumping over, and told Steven that she knew. She wasn’t thinking.  
“We aren’t thinking. And it’s not just because we’re eighteen. No one’s thinking here, Connie. Not in this game. No matter how much we think we are.”  
December the 14th, Connie was about to go off to a more rural area of the town they were staying in, this time moving up the eastern area of Maryland, starting with Delmarva right behind them and forging forward, making their way to the west. From there, they’d make the harrowing decision. Should they go to the North, where they’d be more likely to be tolerated? Or should they go to the South, where it was most needed? In a bundle of irony, going to the South would be taking the high path here.  
“I’m going Christmas shopping, Steven. Trying to beat the crowds.”  
Nothing.  
Thinking he was doing another one of his video chats, she walked closer to his room. As much as Steven teased her for it, she didn’t knock on the door; whoever Steven was video chatting to would want desperately to see her.  
“Steven-”  
Everything in her tensed; the bile skyrocketed to her head, and she almost doubled over, clutching her stomach. But even when the ache passed, the bile wouldn’t leave her head. None of this would leave her head.  
The bathroom door was open; Steven was keeled in front of the toilet. Connie could tell from a hundred feet away that he’d used it to hurl in it. He was sweating. So much sweat, so much swear. He twitched a little, then lay still. She sucked in a breath, tried to keep her body from shaking, knew that there was something she had to do. First aid. First aid.  
She put Steven on his side. Should she call anyone?  
“Steven!” She didn’t mean for it to be a scream. “Steven!”  
She shook his shoulders back and forth. Nothing.  
No. No.  
She noticed the pink glow around his navel and knew. She let out a sob, a single sob, thanked everything and everyone.  
When they were kids, Steven’d had a conversation with Connie over the same guard rail that was put in after Amethyst took her infamous tumble. Lion was playing fetch with her. Amethyst had done a surprisingly good job of keeping the frisbee close enough to where Lion’s head wouldn’t barge into the two of them while they were talking.  
But it wasn’t Lion’s head that was the problem.  
His tail grabbed onto Steven’s waist. Before a half a second was over, Steven was tossed backwards and let go by the tail. His head had hit the guardrail before his eyes fell shut and he slid and fell. The rock that’d cracked Amethyst’s gem hit Steven’s right arm, and it bent like a bat’s wing before he settled motionless into the sand.  
That day, just about all of them discovered what Steven called his “generator when it snows real hard”- in other words, what kept him alive when his human half, the primary breathing in and breathing out, was in danger. In danger, not dead. Not nonfunctioning. Only malfunctioning. The gem pulsated, kept breath going in and out of his lungs and his heart beating the way that it was supposed to. No hospital would need a life support system as long as the Gem was functioning; it was what replaced the regeneration properties in full-blooded Gems, kept it blended with his human body. Blended with something more than a hologram.  
Steven was rushed to the hospital that day. At first, that was what Connie thought she should do to Steven now as he lay in front of the toilet. But her fingers shook. Her fingers shook as she dialed 911, wondered if and how they'd discover it was Steven they were coming to pick up, if they'd turn tail and go back to the hospital as soon as it occurred to them that he was half of one of them.  
She knew she was alright now. At least halfway. The operator was trained to find out what was wrong with Steven much quicker than Connie was. All the thinking wouldn't be up to her. In a matter of two minutes, she was instructed to take off Steven's jacket so no one else would be contaminated.  
" Contaminated with what?" she asked, although it tiptoed on a yell. "With what?"  
"Arsenic, ma'am."  
Arsenic. Oh, God. How could she not see this coming? How could she and Steven have thrown themselves headlong into this without reading any of the dangers? They saw them. They skimmed them. But they never read them. The road ahead was much brighter than that. Too bright to see the thorns.  
"The chef!" she almost yelled, the tears in her throat the only thing holding her back. "It was the dam chef!"  
She was instructed to sit Steven up so he wouldn't choke, rinse his mouth should he accidentally swallow any more. She noticed tears. She dried them off, too, and she let her own fall.  
______________________________  
When Steven woke up at the hospital hours later, his stomach pumped and unpleasant, it was Spinel's hand that was holding his to the point of tingling.  
"Hey, Waffles." He was surprised he'd remembered that.  
The biggest smile in the world went on her face, and after half-squealing, half-saying his name, she took him in a hug big enough to make his back ribs start being sore.  
"Nice to see you, too."  
She'd grown. She'd grown so much, and Steven had missed it. She was reading human books, listening to human music, learned not to use her stretchiness when she was in public. She'd visited all the tourist attractions Beach City had to offer while laying low and sticking with the other Gems so Greg wouldn't be in danger. She hadn't had a burst of outrage in over a month according to Pearl, and that had been when she and Garnet were sharing memories and war stories of Rose. Thinking that Spinel didn't deserve as much of a dose of grief as they were getting, they'd sent her to her room. Little did they know how much it'd backfire.  
He missed it all.  
He had to stop.  
No, not stop. He had to slow down. If he didn't, he may lose his life, both in a literal sense and whatever sense his head and heart came up with.  
As he came out of the hug and Spinel sprang up out of her seat to make a phone call to the rest of his family, he looked around. Looked at the sign. He was back near Beach City now. Most definitely in Delmarva.  
Even without the waves, seagulls still flew. Still teased him. He could still smell home in the air.  
He could slow down here.  
He had to slow down here.  
__________________________  
After Christmas, he decided. On Saint Stephen's day, he decided. After that, he'd leave. He'd have a little over ten days with them, and that was all. He was staying for the holidays, that was all. Neither he nor Connie were abandoning their political life. Connie brought this up to him, tired dinner-plates under her eyes, and told him how she was planning to spend the holidays with her family in lieu of Steven's. He nodded, and with a heaping pan of dhanu muan and a kiss that lasted a long while, she was off.  
The first day he and Connie came back, Greg and Steven talked for a long, long while. Didn’t talk about how Steven hadn’t done a gig with him lately, but that Greg had scheduled at least 3 as soon as Steven announced he was staying at home for the holidays. Talked about life and love and how complicated all of that was. Talked about how poor Pearl was beating herself up for how she was feeling about Greg, and how Greg was doing his best to stop it. Greg thought that everything he did made it worse. But there was one thing that stuck with Steven for at least the rest of the day.  
“We were out of food, so we got some on the way to the grocery store.” He had a small, goofy little smile on him that Steven was in we with; it probably hadn’t appeared on his face since before Steven was born. “It was so stupid. When she stepped out of the car, she saw how this one sedan parked between two spaces. And she started laughing. The simplest thing. But the way she laughs… the wind, it can’t stop it…”  
His childhood bedroom. He hi-fived the same Mr. Universe poster he’d hi-fived since he was tall enough to do it. He looked at it, looked at all the way things were arranged. Other than what he’d taken with him, his father hadn’t changed a thing. He even took a tour to look at all the stains that had accumulated over the past fifteen or so years. The memories struck him, and he was knocked down to the bed. It was too big to squeeze up small apartment stairs.  
The tears flowed with no reason, no origin. The smell, even the smell. It was something that wouldn’t ever leave him.  
For awhile, he was a child.  
But only for awhile.  
He wished he could’ve been for longer.  
But only for awhile.  
______________________________________________________________________________  
Garnet must’ve come in in the middle of Steven’s nap. He knew by the way part of his sheets were tucked in perfectly by Pearl, and then only halfway ruined on the other end.  
He also knew by the note that was left by the side of the dresser.  
“We’re all worried about you. But whatever decision you decide to make, we’ll support it. Or at least I will.”  
Steven chuckled a little and headed downstairs.  
______________________________________________________________________________  
That late afternoon, after conversation after conversation of how Steven’s political life was doing so far other than him being poisoned with arsenic by the hotel chef, Spinel told Steven of how quickly she was catching up to human technology.  
“It sucks,” she said. But then she giggled. “But I like it. Something charmin’ about it.”  
“How often’re you on there?”  
“I dunno. An hour a day, maybe? I’m learning really quick. Although Greg told me that with my reputation, it wouldn’t be the smartest idea for me to get a social media account.” She shrugged at him, then stretched herself so her top half was sticking out the door while her bottom half was still sitting in the seat. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “I CAN STILL MAKE A FAKE ACCOUNT, MR. GREG!”  
“WHAT?”  
“I SAID, I CAN MAKE, A FAKE, ACCOUNT!”  
“NO!”  
Spinel made a little sigh, and by the time her top and bottom half were at the same. By the time Spinel looked at Steven, he was a little pale.  
She made a little giggle before almost slapping herself for it. “Sorry, Steven. I don’t do that as often. Just when it’s convenient.”  
Steven could’ve told her about why Greg said “no”. About the amount of danger Spinel would be putting him in, about the IP that could easily be detected by hackers no matter how anonymous she’d made it. But he didn’t. Instead, he, knowing what kind of trouble she could get into by putting herself out to the world, dashed to his room and came back with two tiny machines that played the game “Doom the Darkness”, Steven and Amethyst’s favorite.  
“What do you even do on here?” She tapped the screen.  
“It’s a bit tricky, but I think you’ll get the hang of it. You have these buttons to move, this button to fire, this button to start the game, and THIS one to activate your cloaking device.”  
“Cloaking device?”  
“Yeah, makes your ship invisible.”  
“Yeah, I know. I had that feature on my injector. I’m just wondering why that button’s so big here.”  
Steven got a chill right in the middle of his spine. “Spinel, this isn’t an actual ship.”  
“It isn’t? It looks a little weird.”  
“No, this is like a game of pretend.”  
Her eyes lit up like firecrackers, and Steven couldn’t help but chuckle and put a hand on her shoulder. “Here, you pretend to be the ship.”  
Steven was particularly interested to see her reaction once she died for the first time. She made the quietest yell Steven could remember and gripped the carpet before taking a breath and starting again.  
"That it, Spinny?"  
Okay, that was a little cruel.  
"Sorry."  
"S'okay, Steven. I need stuff like that sometimes. Helps me fight against it harder."  
After the third time, however, she got the hang of it. She even loved how it mirrored old Gem aerial tactics of evading bullets from tens or even hundreds of ships while fighting back with a single one, which is why Steven loved it so much in the first place. She even got past the fifth level without getting hurt, but was obliterated the sixth one.  
"S'okay, Spinel. I played this thing for five years before I beat level six."  
"Yeah, but you were a kid."  
Steven smiled, almost said, "So are you."  
. By the time Steven played the game again to see if his grown-up, chubby fingers were good enough to beat level eight, Pearl walked into the room.  
“Four hours. She was on that computer for four hours when she first went on it, Steven. I don’t know what to do with her!”  
Steven and Spinel couldn’t help but laugh, and if only Steven was alien enough to transcend, or at least freeze, time.  
______________________________________________________________________________  
Two days later on December 17th, just before lunchtime, Garnet started shifting back and forth, obviously in discomfort while Greg fried up some hotdogs and Pearl tried to make a sugar crystal sculpture nearby that’d be “too good for them to eat” when she was done.  
“Garnet? You okay?”  
“Sure I am.” Two voices. Steven was almost thrown back in her seat, while Pearl looked back and said a sad little “she does that sometimes” before going back.  
“It’s...pretty clear that you’re not. Want to sit down?”  
Steven tried to make a resolution that whatever problem Garnet was having, he wouldn’t fix. But that became harder and harder the more the seconds passed, and immediately, his resolution barreled out into the Atlantic outside like a message in a bottle.  
“How’s the whole….’unnatural’ thing?”  
Garnet cringed. “It’s not getting better.”  
Spinel had to smile at Garnet’s clipped-off “t”s, and it was the first time Steven had even noticed them at all.  
“Seems that they hate that part of mnas more than they do mnas itself.”  
An effortless fusion, an allegory. The word for “me” or “I” in Gem was “mnie”, while the word for “us” in Gem was “nas”. They were blended easily into “mnas” shortly after Gems discovered they could fuse hundreds of thousands of years ago. “Me” and “us”. “I” and “we”. “Mnas. ¨ She only used it when she was emotional. And Steven hadn’t remembered her using that word since he at least first moved out to the Capitol.  
“And how did…” Steven looked behind him, saw a cream-colored woman watch them at the edge of the property line, looked on sternly and waited until she walked away. “And how did they find out?”  
“I...I don’t know. Maybe the-”  
She suddenly stood up to her full height, backed down a little when she saw how frightened Steven was.  
“The wedding, Steven. At least fifty humans were there. And it’s not like we knew they were all supportive. Not like your dad or Lars or Sadie. Any one of them could’ve been there under cover, and they could’ve told everyone they knew.”  
She covered her forehead with both hands. Steven gasped a little, and it was only when Garnet saw them both when she took a breath, tried to articulate something useful from that crowded-to-the-fire-marshal’s-wits’-end that was her mind.  
“We want to move somewhere. Both of us. Anywhere. Not here. You see these people, they think that biology’s all there is to it. They think that anything else is unnatural. This species doesn’t even need population, even they have released their own papers-”  
“Hey. Garnet? Garnet. Look at me.”  
Nothing from her.  
He knew not to put his hands on her shoulders, but he tapped a hand to the left frame of her visor, and it seemed to have the same effect.  
“You are not unnatural. Love isn’t unnatural. What you have is just as natural as what...Connie and I had.” He didn’t dare to venture into “whLook at you! You’re a rock! Two rocks! You’re the most natural thing there is!”  
She made something in between a grunt and a wince, looked towards the ground.  
“And besides all of that. You know what rocks also are?”  
“Strong.” No hesitation. “All of us are.”  
__________________________  
Well, I guess I’m only halfway strong, then, thought Steven. Oh, well. It’s been like that since forever.  
__________________________  
December the 19th, Amethyst was searching. When Steven was falling asleep that night, he could hear her tapping, tapping, tapping. He smiled and made a little chuckle-wheeze. Amethyst was always so thoughtful, when it came to Christmas presents. Not with anything else, through. But Steven thought he was at first hallucinating when he woke up at three in the morning. Other than the routine pattering of the waves that had swept into his mind at a young age enough for him to always be able to fall asleep to it- wait. Pattering. That didn’t sound right.  
The sound was coming out of Steven’s room. He stepped out of his bed before subconsciously putting a hand on the Mr. Universe poster. He squinted in the slightest amount of disappointment as he realized the tapping was more typing from Amethyst’s computer in her room. At first, he thought she had something to hide, but Steven noticed the clearly open door and her silk-and-cotton hair being lit by the computer while she brushed it back every so often.  
There was one problem: Spinel’s door was open, too.  
Spinel was covering herself with her pillow, her eyebags drooping to the ground. “Why’s sleep hafta be so hard, Stevie? I haven’t gotten a lick of sleep…”  
“Shhh.” Steven put a hand on her cheek and moved down, brushed her pigtails, and she felt the need to close her eyes again after a few times. “I know sleeping’s still new to you. And you might not have known this, but sleep works better when your room is quiet. So… close the door before you go to sleep, okay?”  
Steven felt...cheated. Cheated that he hadn’t gotten to play this role for the entire time he was being raised. That he was an only child. Why, because Gems couldn’t handle pregnancy like humans could? That cheated them all.  
She nodded, but as Steven moved to leave the room, she said the words that Steven was sure Pearl had been hearing since the first week she’d came here.  
“Don’t leave me.”  
Something was wrong with Steven. He gripped on the door handle. He tried to walk forward, pushed himself back a little, so it looked like he was jerking in place, or stopping entirely. He was neutralizing himself, and he went into a panic. He couldn’t control himself. His movement. His thinking- his thinking wasn’t right, either. No, I’m not going to leave her. She obviously needs me, even if she is a little annoying. And besides, how long would it take for her to fall asleep?  
Leave her. She’s a drag on you.  
No! Why would I do that?! Why would I think that/?!  
He had to sit down. Had to-he collapsed, banged the back of his upper arm against Spinel’s dresser.  
“Steven? Steven, you okay?”  
All of a sudden, a pool of contradiction took over Steven. Was this what it was like to be Garnet? Was her head swimming in these thoughts all the time? Memories of a thousand years bashed his head. Bashed it two times. Three. Four. Five. Six.  
Do it! Do it, Steven, because you did it before!  
I know. I know where this is going. No. I’m my own person now. You know that, right?  
I know. But do it for the sake of your sanity, for the sake of mine.  
It took some more searching, but he found that the voice of him doing it was his mother. A figment of her. Their subconsciousness was sharing, and he was wallowing in all four corners of it.  
No. No, Mom, no, why are you here, Mom…  
He shook, and thoughts were him, and he opposed all of them, and he shook, and he shook, and he fell asleep long before Spinel ever would.  
____________________________________________  
Heart thumping. Thumping. Thumping. Thumping.  
His eyes shot open. After a few seconds, he realized he was still in Spinel’s room, the lights turned on and highlighting all the posters on the walls. His dad was staring almost directly into his eyes.  
“Pearl. Pearl, he’s awake. You can tell the operator that. You’re okay. You’re okay, right?”  
“Y….” he couldn’t say the full word yet. Not now. He shut his eyes again before he tried to sit up.  
Pearl practically yelled as she tried to force his legs still, but as Garnet and Amethyst pulled her off, Greg just moved the door so that Steven could more easily get his balance and sit up.  
“You okay?” Greg repeated.  
He blinked. He blinked again. Saw the looks on all their faces and looked at the ground in order to avoid them. Then, he laughed.  
“First the arsenic, then this.” His laughing grew louder. “Man, can’t you guys buy me a LifeAlert?"  
Most of them at least smiled. Only Garnet sighed, said, "He's fine," and left. But the space whe opened led his line of vision to Spinel at the edge of the bed, looking down.  
“Why were you all panicking?” Steven asked as he slowly shuffled his way to his feet.  
“Because you were.” Greg helped him up, and Steven didn't object.  
“What? No, I wasn’t! I was just thinking something that my mom wouldn’t, that’s all!”  
Pearl piped up . “You weren’t just ...panicking, Steven. You were full-on convulsing.”  
“Pearl.” His father’s exhausted voice this time. He sighed. “It wasn’t full-on convulsing. He was just twitching once every few seconds or so. If it weren’t for it happening so often, it may as well have been muscle spasms from staying up so late all those nights working on speeches.” He patted his shoulder before Amethyst came around.  
“Steven?”  
“Yeah?”  
He was so tired. So tired, and he let his arms slip to his lap, his lap slip to the bed, his body following it.  
“You know what I was doing tonight, right?”  
He shook his head, grabbed a pillow and pushed his cheek against it.  
“I was seeing if there was a Gem army anywhere I could apply to.”  
___________________________  
All the family could do was hope that nothing was buried in Rose’s conscience more than she’d already revealed it to be.  
And Spinel always had trouble sleeping once she realized how much Rose had thought of her.  
______________  
He always remembered Christmas. Remembered the way his father would always joke about how the day didn’t matter and that tomorrow was Saint Stephen’s Day, even if his days of being too overly Christian with his family were at least decades behind him.  
He remembered the way the winter always turned on its end and the way the sky would always have its way of changing. The moon would lengthen and brighten, and since he was a child, he’d have the impulse late at night, after every present was unwrapped and after almost every guest had left the house, to shout out, to put on all of the jewelry that had belonged to girlfriends his father’d left behind a long, long time ago, and to half-dance with the women in the house under the moon in the backyard celebrating a Moon Goddess he didn’t necessarily believe in.  
Then again, he felt as if he’d never be able to do more than half of anything.  
He’d received Connie’s present… a book that appeared to be on public speaking until he read it and realized it was a different book altogether, a compilation of superhero comics dug up from the back of the publishing house the comic was originally in. He’d read it all Christmas morning, putting every attempt on his life, every speech, every stress from both sides of him before his father called his name and it was almost lunchtime.  
As they all gathered in front of the Christmas tree, Garnet was still trying to explain to Spinel what a Christmas was and why people gave items to each other without anyone meriting them.  
“But why during the middle of winter?”  
“Because that’s when humans first decided it to be.”  
“And why is there a picture of a baby in a...wooden house?”  
“It’s complicated. But it’s because of your dad and what he used to be, and it’s because the local store had nothing else good for sale because just about everyone here is what your dad used to be.”  
She covered her mouth, adjusted her visor to make sure it covered her eyes enough. “What Greg used to be.”  
Spinel didn’t seem to notice. “And why is the tree not made of cryo-infused chloromatter? It’d be a lot cheaper, not to mention more efficient."  
Her face was stone. “I’m not Pearl. Don’t ask me.”  
Spinel frowned a little and looked towards the ground, and Garnet tried to touch her shoulder in an apology before Spinel turned back around, laughed in mischief, and sprang out of the way to look for any presents that may belong to her. Garnet couldn’t help but chuckle twice; once for what’d happened with Spinel, and twice for her being the only one she could know who could send a gift to herself without it being considered cheating.  
Steven chuckled as he finished opening his first present, but as soon as he tugged the golden wrapping on the second one, Pearl made the mistake of turning on the TV in search of one of the Christmas specials.  
On the way, she found a news channel with one headline.  
"NEW STATE ORDINANCE INVOLVING THE PROTECTIVE SEPARATION OF HUMANS AND EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEINGS TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN THE NEXT HOUR."  
_________________________  
Over the next hour, everyone had their own reactions. There was Greg, who only repeated, "I knew it" before laying out maps of the town. There was Pearl, who screamed and locked the doors and shut the windows, even one of the chairs and barred the back door with it. Garnet guarded the front and kept lookout, saying things only Ruby would say once in awhile. Spinel didn't know what to do. Didn't know how she was going to handle her separation from Greg, and for a moment Steven could've sworn he saw her tears lengthening.  
Only Amethyst contributed her possible battle strategies. Vantage points to take down the human officials when they arrived. The lightpad was not an option, as they didn't know how many were guarding the one out in the gem sect of Beach City. Going out of state, to Delaware up north a half an hour away, was their best bet, they concluded. But how to get away, they wondered? They could use the ocean as a possible escape point, but the only thing Greg had was a sailboat that would leave them sitting ducks for the hour it would take to get all of them out of sight.  
But the van…  
Greg knew back roads to take, eroded from some of the collective remnants of Hurricanes Dorian, Edouard, and Fred that had whiplashed their way up there. No way the authorities would risk taking that road unless they had to. And they only had to if they saw them. The van could fit all of them easily. It was hiding them that was the problem…  
Greg's gears went into overdrive as he sprinted to his garage, not taking Amethyst with him. He rustled through pile after pile and took dimmer, which looked like blinds with spots all over them and a giant Thomas the Tank Engine plastered on it. He'd put them in to keep the sun out of Steven's eyes when he was younger. One quick "haven't gotten the money to buy another one, and besides, these work fine" and he wouldn't be questioned. Everyone would have to stoop down and lay on the floor in a semi dogpile. For space purposes, Spinel was a little too eager to volunteer to poof herself, which resulted in everyone screaming, or at least firmly telling, her not to.  
But as time passed, they looked on with worry at how little space was in the van. If they dogpiled, not only would it be uncomfortable- if someone looked in the window a little too hard or opened the door, they'd all tumble out just like that. So they found a heavy metal rod Steven kept under his bed in case an intruder came. Garnet, the only one with the nerve to do it, all had them line up and then clubbed them all on the head with it once, hard enough for her to end up with a handful of very valuable, mostly intact gemstones in her hand and nothing more.  
She was rushing them all down to the garage, wrapped in a bath towel, when she asked the question. "Should we tell the others?"  
Everything stopped. If they told them now, they'd only have fifteen minutes or so to evacuate. And enough people running around trying to evacuate meant they'd all be spotted.  
But if they didn't, could they live with themselves?  
After the texts made, Steven wondered if he could live with himself as Garnet asked him to hit her again with the rod.  
"Please." Tears came from her top eye, pouring, and dripped from one of her bottom ones; she clutched her head and tried to sit up. "I didn't hit myself hard enough."  
Steven grimaced, shut his eyes. He raised it into the air, and everything in him whipped around in a tornado, stopped as Greg grabbed his brother's left-behind hunting rifle- for self defense in case they came across more violent authorities- and did the job. Two more valuable gems appeared on the floor.  
"Oh, my God."  
Greg shook as he put the rifle down. Steven ran towards the garage door, pushed the button to lift the door. Now that they weren't needed, he put back the decade-old Thomas the Tank Engine blinders.  
"Steven. Steven, I shot her. Steven…"  
He crumpled onto his knees, trying to catch his workseat as he went down.  
Steven grabbed the gems, stuffed them all into the glove compartment. By the time he came back, Greg had already stuttered halfway across the garage, putting up his hand when Steven offered to drive. Greg turned off the tracking device on his phone along with Steven and backed out of the garage.  
"I know someone up in Rehoboth. We can stay there, Steven."  
"In one of the beach houses?" Steven jostled along with the van as it set out on the half-sand.  
"Yeah. It's not the best, but it's our best shot. We don't know the landscape there yet. But it's gotta be better than here, Steven. It's gotta."  
The trucks. They were designed to look like cattle cars; that was apparent to both humans there. They hoped it was for intimidation purposes only. A bad sign. A bad sign...  
"Go, Dad! Go!"  
He regretted it as the van's jostling confused his seatbelt, and it tightened over his chest the point of him coughing as he jostled some more. Greg muttered something about the alignment before going up towards the state line.  
Twenty minutes passed. Suddenly, the glove compartment expanded to four times its size There was a horrible screaming sound from the glove compartment. Ruby's voice. Then another poofing noise before Steven could interfere, and Ruby was back in her gem.  
"Ruby, oh, G-" Steven grabbed the barf bag in the pocket behind the seat and vomited.  
“She must’ve been the one Garnet missed the first time” was all Greg said before he gripped harder onto the steering wheel, realized that there was someone in front of him on the beach, swerved to the right.  
Steven shuddered, looked out to the waves as they threatened to creep up from the shoreline and nip the edges of their tires. He gripped the bag in his hand. “How close are we to the state line?”  
“Almost there. Almost there, Steven, okay? Just hold on. Stay with me, all of you.”  
Steven made plans in case there were guards blocking the state lines, in case they’d formed a plan far before their family did, which was most likely the case considering the state was the entity that had the ordinance released in the first place. Greg did his best to look disheveled, look like he was lost, disoriented. Steven suggested Greg distort the truth a little, say he was visiting family up north. Greg nodded, and when they approached the touristesque sign indicating where the border was, Greg saw guards out of the corner of his eye, but as the van slipped past the sign, both father and son could feel the guards’ eyes training on them.  
“We made it. Oh, God.”  
Five minutes passed by before they saw the sign indicating where Rehoboth began, a town almost identical to Beach City, except entirely with a human population and only ever hearing stories of what was going on. Greg pulled onto the road away from the sand with one huge jolt, and Steven opened the glove compartment.  
Spinel came to, clutching her head in near-agony for the slightest of seconds, as soon as Greg sat down on the bar at the back of the van.  
She took a look around, almost tasted something wrong in the air. “Where are we? It doesn’t look like we’re out of Mary’s-land or whatever it’s called.”  
Greg didn’t move; he’d taken ahold of his own head. Spinel put an arm over his shoulder.  
She looked at the open glove compartment and the thousands of dollars worth of gemstones inside, found she couldn’t stop.  
“You remember?”  
Steven felt a shudder as he looked back at her, although it could’ve been the now nonexistent wind.  
“Remember what?”  
“When you-”  
The both of them were silent for the next half a minute. Greg had now come off the back of the van, causing the whole thing to shift so slightly that you couldn’t tell it happened unless you were physically touching the van’s floor.  
“When I poofed them?” She buried her fingers in her hair, messed it up. The thought occurred to Steven that the first thing Pearl would do when she came back was fix it. “Kinda. It’s...foggy. I remember that, but then I remember getting cut in half.”  
“Yeah.” Steven chuckled, scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry.”  
“It’s alright. I was attacking you first, after all. I don’t think there’s anything anyone could do to say that what I did was alright. Even anything I could do.”  
She sighed, and Steven knew that sigh more than anything.  
“But I do remember.”  
A tear trailed its way down her cheek. Steven reached out to dry it, halfway out of instinct. Spinel jerked away a little at first, but then sighed and let Steven wipe it away, wipe away the next one. His hand stayed there until both were sure that she was done.  
“I do remember.”  
_________________


	12. Chapter 12....Season 6 Finale- Saint Stephen's Day

After what must have been ten once-overs to see if there were any leftover guards from Beach City that had trickled over into Bethany Beach, the area in the middle of Beach City and Rehoboth. While Bethany Beach was, by all means, out-of-state, both Greg and Steven thought it was a good idea to buy themselves a little distance to throw off some of the guards. While Greg called his friend, Steven watched as slowly, each Gem unpoofed. Sapphire was one of the first to. Steven told her that Ruby’d unpoofed early, but didn’t have the heart to tell her the details. But Sapphire seemed to catch on; she screamed a little before she clutched the ruby to her chest and kissed it before wrapping it halfway in the folds of her dress.  
Afterwards, Amethyst unpoofed, clutched her head. “When Garnet comes out, I’m going to give her what-for, I swear.” She looked at Sapphire holding Ruby, said nothing else.  
Pearl then jumped out, tapped a little at her pearl, testing it by running the same basic analysis she’d done for the past thousands of years since she was first poofed. Some of the only Gem Steven knew, and it meant, “Identification: Pearl-E7314, hailing from Cancri-55E. May the Great Diamond Authority live forever.”  
Ruby was still resting in Sapphire’s arms and dress by the time Greg said, “It’s time to head out. Saph, I’m putting you in the backseat with Ruby, alright?”  
She nodded. “Please don’t call me Saph.”  
In a matter of a few minutes, they were at his friend’s house. It was foreign; that was all Steven wanted to know. It didn’t smack of home at the slightest.  
He rang the doorbell. Sapphire was the one to keep a lookout before the ruby in her dress popped back to life. Ruby looked at Sapphire, looked at each hand, disconcerted. But Ruby and Sapphire still ran somewhere where no one could see them before, after moments of indescribable tenderness, Garnet walked back to the front porch.  
As Steven stepped inside, he realized how familiar Randy was. When he was a kid, he thought, he first saw him. He was Irish, undeniably. Red hair. Short. Everything. But he also looked like he went to the gym. He realized- and the world ever so slightly crumbled on him- that this was the reason that his dad blushed when he went near him. Steven remembered Greg telling him how he really felt around both most women and some men, although that seemed so long ago...  
“Nice to see you, Randy.” Greg was about to step closer to him, but looked at Pearl; Steven could detect a little nervousness in it. “Thanks for sharing.”  
“Anytime. They’re dangerous, most of them. But like I said, any friend of Greg’s is a friend of mine.”  
___________________  
Connie didn’t waste any time heading over to Rehoboth from her parents’ house. In order to keep themselves from crowding Randy’s house any more than it was already, both Steven and Connie thought it was best to take up their nomadic life again.  
They had to do speeches now. They couldn’t afford not to.  
So the Omnitransmitter was, as always, tossed away. Spinel looked on with a little hatred as Steven and Connie left, but took it in like a punch to the stomach and went back to the door. Except this time, Steven made a real, verbal, tangible promise that he would come back. Like he always would.  
There couldn’t be any time wasted. And so, without any trace of doubt, him and Connie set out on the road, this time trying to find a way back to the Capitol without going into Maryland. At least for now. But after awhile, Connie piped up with her idea of boarding a plane instead, but to her dismay, all of the airports were in Maryland. So they painfully found a way to snake to the Capitol, taking a few days to weave their way around by heading all the way up to the top of Delaware and to the tip of southern Pennsylvania. They then snuck their way west until they hit West Virginia. After heading down to about Elkins, it was a straight shot east across I-66 in Virginia until they found their way, finally, in the Capitol. It was the middle of January by then, and him and Connie figured that the speeches would last all the way until the end of the month. Then, hopefully, things should have died down about this law.  
The first speech was met by rousing applause. More than that, even. There was even cries of, “Jarilo! Jarilo! Jarilo!” by some of the Quartzes.  
War. One of the few words in Gem he was ever taught.  
Rather than shouting for quiet, he put up his hand. It took a half a minute, but soon, all was quiet. He had to wait until all was quiet; otherwise, whatever he said would be lost in conversation after conversation, and possibly, if he waited too soon, a few more “Jarilo”s.  
When the silence finally swept over the Capitol, a wave over Steven’s chilled back when he was taken there as a baby.  
Three. Two. One.  
Liftoff.  
All improv from here.  
“Gems. Gems of all types. Obiety. Women.  
No matter what role you served in Homeworld, we have one role now. And that role is to protect this world for the interest of both species; when one species dies, we all die. I see humans’ souls die every day with this new law. And I tell you that when your soul dies, when your soul is separated, it is worth as much as a physical death, as a physical separation. And no matter if you understand every word I say or if you must use a translator because you are still in the process of learning this human language, we all speak one language. We all know this language. It lives deep inside all of us.  
And that language says that conflict is not the way. I condone self-defense, by all means. But I am as much human as I am Gem. I am as much them as I am you. By attacking them, you are attacking me. But by defending yourselves, you are defending me. By defending yourselves, you defend your species. By defending your species, you defend both species.  
Defend yourself. Defend all of us. But any more will cause harm. Keep the faith. But keep action.”  
But as the speech ended, he still felt a creeping sense come up to him. He didn’t know what it composed of. Maybe it was the way the van’s walls walked towards him with their two bodies. They took their feet and shuffled a little higher up his shoulders with every move the second hand on his always-rose-quartz watch made until Connie came, laughing, almost tackling him in the hallway.  
“And all impromptu? Man, I should not be as hard with you with your computer use!”  
And for a moment, everything was alright. He exhaled, and a torrent of stress left him. He knew that it was a wave by the salt he tasted in his mouth, only knowing by Connie wiping it away that it was a year. Neither of them were quite sure whether it was out of relief or out of stress.  
In any event, Connie laughed as she finished arranging a safety plan should there be an active threat during one of the speeches, human or Gem. "I had a cut on my hand. Thank you for healing it."  
________  
Steven, even with everything his head went through, didn't think he'd ever forget what happened during the second speech.  
By then, it was January 29th. Ruby and Sapphire had unfused in order to renew their wedding vows before fusing again. Spinel had started to notice that her tear marks were shorter, although that came and went with whatever mood her brain decided she’d feel that moment. And Pearl and Greg had gone “alone together to do some things”, although almost everyone else saw through it for what it really was. But none of it mattered now that all the other Gems were living under segregation. Segregation. He’d thought he’d never hear the word again, at least not in the country he was in at the moment. The last time he heard that, he was being homeschooled and learning about a time not even his dad could remember.  
He'd decided to do it on the other side of the city, where the highest concentration of humans were. The end farthest from Maryland, with Alexandria right next to it. Heh. Confidence seemed to push the envelope a little too much. Enough for the letter to burst out from underneath.  
And it was more than letters that Steven received once he got there. It was purely volatile, a word that Peridot had taught him before he graduated the middle school level of online courses at home. He could see the signs calling him the same "mutt from Mars" that was etched all over the human buildings near where the remaining Gems were now segregated to along with every other Gem in Maryland.  
But he spoke. And when he spoke, he kept it short. Kept it silent. He suppressed every part in him that was Gem. So it made sense that the speech was half as long as what it should be.  
There was a short hush over the crowd. Steven looked to the left and to the right for immediate danger, pretending to be solemn about it in order to look decent.  
Connie was already waiting for him, and before anyone could react, they’d driven away to the hotel.  
__________  
Steven realized he had trouble breathing that day. It wasn’t because of asthma- him running around on at least over a dozen planets had shaved off a lot of his baby fat, and with that, a lot of his asthma. And it wasn’t because of any accidental falls on his chest as he came down the stairs, which is what Connie and him joked about initially.  
He realized it was the same thing that made him shed a tear earlier.  
It was also the same thing that caused him to look out the back window- it was arranged almost exactly the way it was back in their old condo across town- and out the front door almost over and over again. Connie didn’t ask him what was wrong with him; she only pulled him into her lap and sighed before stroking the hair she’d always lose her fingers in.  
“What if they come, Connie? What if it’ll be just, like, before, and…”  
“Shhh. And we were alright before, weren’t we?”  
She took a strand and toyed with it a little before settling her hands down.  
“Yeah, but that doesn’t, stop me from…”  
“I know.” She took the little area tshirt in between his exposed back and his hoodie, started kneading it.  
Her hands stopped, settled again. The hotel was quiet other than the occasional sound of someone walking their dog outside; the air arond them seemed to hold itself in a breath. It exhaled when the heater kicked in, and the breath exhaled. Steven took another breath, a proper breath, and started to speak.  
“You ever heard of Elvis?”  
“Who hasn’t?”  
“I mean, you ever heard of Elvis’ story?”  
“Not...I mean…”  
“He loved his mom so much. More than anything-” Tears came. “Sorry, I… you know what he did next?”  
“No.”  
“He spent his entire life trying to find a girl to fall in love with him and be like a mom to him at the same tiime. A girl near his age. And he never got it, because no girl wanted somebody who wanted that. And then- then he started drinking, and then he moved on to dugs, and he was a mess, and he ruined his life, and he wanted to die, and I don’t wanna be like him. I don’t ever wanna be like him, Connie…”  
“Steven…”  
It was the weight of the world that Steven let soak into not only Connie, but anything who wasn’t him, slowly.  
And it was the weight of the world that slowly lead him to sleep.  
______________  
It was the weight of the world that pushed him onward.  
Steven had realized how far he’d gone and decided he’d destress by going to a cooking class with Connie to learn how to cook some of the food she so loved. Oddly specific, but something the Capitol wouldn’t be lacking. Since it featured much of Connie’s culture, she thought it was best for her to help organize the event. Which is why after a quick peck on the cheek and a quick reaffirmation for the other from both of them, Steven was walking by himself out of the condo towards the building right down the street corner where everything was going on.  
He didn’t know the rules. He didn’t know you weren’t supposed to walk in groups of less than at least five when walking on the sidewalk here, even when going somewhere close. He’d didn’t know. He’d been homeschooled in rural Delmarva all his life.  
But he was about halfway there, in the little area on the sidewalk in between a bank and a bakery, when he saw them.  
They’d been toeing his family’s property for awhile now. His dad had even pretended to be a tourist in order to see what was going on with them. The leader had red hair, curly just like Randy’s. He knew he was the leader because of the way he manipulated himself, used boxes, high places on sidewalks, anywhere in order to make himself appear the tallest. There were others with him, kids that looked a little older than Steven, mentally if not physically. Most had snow-pale skin. And Steven’s skin turned pale itself when he saw the shirt that the leader wore.  
“Keep Beach City Mutt-Free.”  
Before he knew it, the leader had pinned him down to the floor, was tugging at his navel before Steven could do anything. Muffled by the lack of people and by the leader shoving his face into his own jacket, he screamed in ten seconds of excruciating agony as the piece of diamond was pulled out, tossed to the end of the sidewalk and into one of the sewer grates nearby as his entire core felt like it was lit on fire.  
"No, my...my-"  
Exhaustion gripped him. He felt as if a train were crushing him; he coughed under the weight of it.  
The leader took out a knife, not-so-deftly cut the lef sleeve off of Steven’s own hoodie, tied it around Steven’s mouth and the back of his neck. Steven clenched his bleeding arm and tried his best to take advantage of the pain-fueled tears. Before he could, the leader took the arm, pinned it back until Steven heard a quiet crack. The tears flooded from his eyes this time, unabridged and unbound, but not falling anywhere they needed to.  
He tried kicking a little despite all the exhaustion, but two others held his legs down. His right arm flailed, now unable to summon any weapons. He shook his head as his body started to shut down.  
In a few seconds, it was all he could do to breathe normally, and he found it too exhausting to struggle.  
“There you are. Human just like the rest of us, aren'tcha?”  
It was all Steven could do to get a better look at him. He prayed that it was a sudden bout of rain that caused his eyes to be blurry this time. The only thing the tears were doing for him now was embarrassing him.  
There were freckles on the leader. Undeniably. He looked like a twisted version of Lars. But those around him were of all different shapes and sizes. They were all wearing some shade of black and had some shade of faded text. They were each fetching something out of their pockets.  
The exhaustion crushed Steven’s head, and he winced and dropped his head slowly on the alley floor.  
“Y’know, Steven, December happened a long time ago.”  
Steven felt his body slowly fill with a fourth a gallon of waste products that should’ve been taken out a long time ago, all poisoning him from the inside out, the gem not taking out or putting in what it had to.  
So whatever his human body had to offer tried to fill in the gem’s role. His back burned, and so did the top of his stomach. He tried to vomit, found he was too exhausted to.  
He felt his lungs as they tired out. His eyelids fluttered shut over his now jasper-yellow eyes. The amount of venom in the leader’s voice only made it worse.  
“But I was at Mass then. And the Gospel the day after Christmas gave me an idea. The person in there had the same name as you. Stephen. Something happened to him there.”  
He heard quiet rumble-rattles, tossing sounds from the others. Undoubtedly whatever was in their pockets.  
Rocks.  
He was past confusion. The breath caught in his throat, and he tried as best as he could to move himself towards the sewer grate, but all his body could allow him to do was to make a glorified flinch.  
"And you'd like to live up to your namesake, wouldn't you?”  
And for every day and nightmare afterwards, if Steven was asked if he knew what it was like to be dipped in Hell for those nexxt minutes, he couldn’t answer no.  
He didn’t know what it was like to be stoned. No one did he knew of. Stoning was something done in the Bible his father read when he was younger. All he knew is that he tried to scream to his shutting-down body to run, run, run, and that was before the first stone.  
The leader had the honor of throwing the first one. Of all places, it hit his chest. He made a horrible noise in between a yelp and a scream, a mixture of both. A mixture. It was what he was. It was a stabbing punch, if he could describe it any better. All the bravado was gone; the tears were squeezed out as if he were a fish being choked of all its water.  
“That feel good? Huh? That’s what you’ve been doing to us. Taking our jobs! Making us poor! Firing my dad and making me poor! Sending more aliens to come down and threaten us! That feel good?”  
No, no, that’s not what we’re trying to-  
His head was murky with pain. He closed his eyes under the murky sky.  
And that was when the rest of the stones hit.  
His body was lit on fire with these stabbing punches, and he jerked in a terrible dance. The world closed in on him and pierced his human skin with needles, and it was all he could to protect his head.  
The side of his leg unlocked blood it shouldn’t have before it was quickly splintered into a million pieces. His collarbone was the next to go. Shattered completely, blood spewing initially. Then his lower back howled as it was bruised. Then his foot, his back again, his stomach, chest...no more words….no more, no more….  
Everything that was human howled at him in mutiny.  
The screaming. The screaming.  
All muffled by the jacket.  
Screaming.  
Screaming.  
Whimpering.  
Gasping.  
Silence.  
Was he dead? He didn’t know. Was he not breathing? He wasn’t paying attention. But either way, he could feel the blood in his veins as it poured itself into the ground. He could feel his lungs twisting. Filling. What were they filled with? He didn’t know. He could hear himself gasping into the sleeve tied around his mouth.  
Both legs broken, his left arm still pinned to his back and breaking with them. Stomach quickly swelling and leaking blood. Chest seizing. His hands and back almost compromised, and one of the youngest ones almost stopped and threw up at the sight of exposed muscle on his hand. The bruises he couldn't count. The cuts, he-  
Connie. I love you so much.  
Dad, I didn’t tell you that enough.  
Pearl. Thank you.  
Spinel. Sweetheart, you’ve come so far.  
Amethyst. I’ve never seen you as anyone less.  
Garnet. The both of you are unstoppable.  
I never tell any of you any of this enough.  
I never….  
He lay there, dead. Lifeless to the world until, after a few more stones dropped on him for good measure, they shuffled out one by one. And then he heard running before the ringing in his ears started kicking in.  
The ringing. His Gem gone.  
White Diamond, don’t- don’t- I need-  
He needed it.  
His eyes shot open, coated with yellow. No one was there.His right arm. He knew it wasn’t damaged.  
He took a long breath, filled with agony.  
He needed it.  
Without the Gem, the brains he had left were murky.  
He had to… the sewer grate….  
He stretched out his arm, felt like it was being stepped on as he moved it. He let himself yelp before he started dragging himself and his body exploded, some of his leg bones scraping on the sidewalk. His lungs crumpled in on themselves, and within 2 drags, he was exhausted. Whatever progress he made was dampened by his coughing, which only sent his body into more fits of pain. He repeated this process again. One more time. And when he was too exhausted, he tried positioning his right limb under his streaming eyes.  
Each cut was gone.  
The sewer grate lay in front of him, flowing with liquid. There was a trail going in from where he’d dragged himself. There was a puddle a little in the grate, tiny. He could tell that much, although it was getting dark now and he couldn’t see what it was. Had his Gem fallen in there? He swiped at it with his hand; it was small enough to where he could hold almost the entire thing in it. He felt something a little heavier than water in his hand. He smiled a little.  
He brought it to where it was close enough for him to see. It was red. Blurry, but red.  
The entire trail was red.  
And there was nothing else he could see in the grate.  
He had to close his eyes. Had to….no, he had to get the Gem, he had to get out of here…  
His eyelids were so heavy…  
I love all of you...  
I never tell any of you any of this enough….  
He let his eyelids fall.


	13. SEASON BRIDGE

END OF SEASON 6


	14. Chapter 1, Season 7- Vkreisc

"Vkreisc", meaning "to revive", is considered a word in Gem that exists only as a placeholder. It is considered an impossible concept, and therefore is only brought in hypothetical conversations, such as in debates between various Zirconia about cases.

He let his eyelids shut.  
His ears rang to the point of him wishing he were deaf. But the closer he listened, the closer he heard voices.  
Mom? No. The voice was too low. Smooth, like velvet. It didn't matter to him. He shuddered. He let the tears flow even farther.  
"It's him, it's...c'mon, c'mon up here!" Five more pairs of feet rushed to him, and the noise hurt his ears slightly. He groaned, put his hand over his left one. He wasn’t surprised when he noticed it was just as slick as the sidewalk and the rest of him. The man ripped the sleeve off of his mouth, and Steven couldn’t help but gasp before he went to a half-fetal position in pain.  
“It’s definitely him. Jacket, shirt, everything. Seen him on TV all over the place, and-and-”  
He felt the man roll him over, felt his lower belly be exposed, didn’t put two and two together until he said, “Steven. Steven boy. Where’s your gem?”  
“Sew-” he coughed as he pointed to the grate. The man’s eyes widened. Steven only realized when the man started searching that he’d coughed up what his body was pouring out.  
The rest poked and prodded at Steven. The man shouted something to a lady with darker skin; she nodded and took his belt off. He let his eyes close again. They knew what they were doing, weren’t they?  
He felt something be pressed into his stomach. His eyes widened, and he let himself breathe, almost apologizing by reflex when the first two breaths were deep and chest-aching gasps for air. “Thank-” Not ready yet. He let himself try to move, realized he was restrained. So he let his mind come back.  
Now, what’d happened? They’d threw stones at him. That much was obvious. And now people had come to help him. He was lucky. Godamnit, he got lucky. Had he been somewhere more rural, like down in Tennessee or the Appalachian region of Virginia like he was beforehand, he’d be dead. Dead, and if the humans were feeling particularly cruel, then so would all the Gems. So would some humans, too. He’d betray both sides of himself completely. He felt the air woosh back into his ears, felt his heart pump into full force the way he never noticed before. He could hear. He could hear.  
The lady turned to the man who’d first ran up to him. “DeKion, DeKion. He’s back.”  
“Thank God. Now we’ve gotta- he’s gotta…”  
“Yeah,” Steven replied. All five pairs of eyes shot towards him, and he pulled his left leg towards himself. He screamed. One raised her voice in alarm before the pain caused the tears to come back searing, and before long, the lower part of the bone settled back into his skin.  
He struggled to get his voice coherent. The night’s wind rushed into his ears. He could’ve smiled in gratitude if it weren’t for his leg exploding underneath him. “I can’t move it up anymore. I can’t move my head to cry on it anymore, I can’t-”  
“We hear you, we hear you. Everyone, get some of his tears and put them on the leg. And everywhere else. I know where the hospital is. I work there.” He cocked his head towards a second woman with dark skin. “You still on the phone, right?”  
“Yeah.” 911, he hoped. “I’m telling her everything.”  
“You’ve gotta cry, okay, Steven boy? You’ve gotta cry till they come.”  
He nodded, and the pain that came when they touched his leg with his tears, bones sticking out and all, was a pain he wouldn’t forget till the day he died.  
By the time Connie was at the scene, the bones on both his legs had found their way back into his skin. But the tears hadn’t managed to reach his arm, or his clavicle, or any of the damage inside. And the pain had only gone down slightly. But it was enough to talk to you.  
“Hey.” He smiled, tasted iron pouring down onto his teeth from the remnants of a cut cheek that the tears hadn’t fell on. He saw the abject terror on Connie’s face grow larger; he apologized, used his tears to take care of it. “I hurt.”  
The fear was taking over her face, and it was all Steven could do to focus on healing himself instead of raising a hand to stroke his wife’s hair. Everything would be alright, he’d say, even through a large amount of blood was still leaking from him, and his bones ached by trying to replenish it. “What the- what the hel?! Steven! What happened?!”  
“Some guys cornered me in the alleyway.” Most of the cuts had been sealed by now, but it was too late. The drop in blood pressure resulting from the massive blood loss from before was sinking in. He felt as if the area between his eyes were being hit by a mallet. “You know. The guys who’ve been stalking our property in awhile.”  
“Why couldn’t you-”  
“My Gem. They took it out.” His head started spinning. He clutched it with his right hand. He was about to fall on his left, but Connie raised him up, started holding him before he could.  
The touch to his left arm made him whimper at first, but he soon realized who was the one holding him. He gave in, let his eyes close. His breath sped up and grew shallow. His mind settled back into murkiness. “They threw, rocks, at me, Connie. Lots, and, lots, of them…”  
“Steven.” His ears rang a little, but he still could clearly hear the urgency in her voice. “Steven. Stay with me, alright? I’ve got you, just stay with-”  
Something was louder than her voice now. A siren. He saw red lights flashing at the corner of his vision, some made orange-ish by his eyelids in the way.  
And after awhile, even that faded away.  
Death faded away.  
Everything faded away.  
____  
His eyes took their time coming open.  
This was somewhat familiar. The same type of foamy bed underneath him, the same type of guard rail, same type of IV bag. Except the left half of his body was in chains. He ever-so-lightly hit it against the bed and heard something hard, dense. But not metal. Not chains.  
As the gears in his brain switched back on, he brought his arm closer to him and realized it was in a cast, and also in a sling that killed two birds in one stone by helping to keep his clavicle still at the top while his arm supported it. He realized his legs were much heavier. They must be in a cast, too.  
This time, it was Pearl who was sitting on the edge of his bed. She was crying her eyes out. He could tell it in the way her voice sounded heavier, in the way her head and her bird-nose drooped to the floor. She was quietly humming a lullaby in Gem, taking ahold of his right hand.  
“Mornin’, Pearl.”  
She didn’t know whether to clutch his hand all the tighter or to drop it. “STEVEN!”. She covered her mouth with her free hand in apology, but later, tears started coming back stronger, a small waterfall. “Oh, God, what did they-”  
He sighed, moved in for a hug before he felt the entire IV stand shift to the left. “It’s okay, Pearl. I’m alright now.”  
Least I think I am.  
After repeating this process with Greg and after both of them were sure that Pearl was gone from the room and off to tell Spinel and the rest that he was alright, he told Greg how confused he was and asked him what the heck had happened to him. Greg told him how the words came out slurred, slow, and how tired Steven looked. Told him it was the painkillers. He’d be like that at least until March. And when Steven asked, he told him that it was the last day of January and he’d been out for at least last night.  
He pulled up a chair, and memories of talk after talk from Steven’s childhood with him starting like that battered both their minds. He realized both Steven’s legs were in casts, winced a little, didn’t put the chair away. Soon as Steven noticed, he put his free hand in his father’s, winced himself at how vice-gripping his father squeezed it at first.  
“Steven. You know...when you were...you know...hurt like this, and….”  
Memories flashed in Greg’s mind of Sunday after Sunday back when he was a child with his Methodist family, and of him listening with as much obedience as he could muster to what the elder was saying about Saint Stephen and his own demise. He put a hand on his face, squeezed the area between his eyelids like he wanted to break the center of his skull. “God, those kids were cruel, cruel as hel, I want to go out and find them, I…”  
A fourth a minute of silence.  
“Dad?”  
“Yeah.”  
A short, almost painful breath.  
“Back to what I was saying. First of all...it’s good that you got your Gem back in. If you didn’t...I wouldn’t know where you would be… and when you got it back in, your tears had covered about sixty percent of the job. But there were still other things that the tears couldn’t quite fix because they were so far in. Your...your chest and stomach were filled with lots of...lots of blood.”  
His face turned pale.  
“Five hours. Five hours you were being worked on for that.”  
Steven was the first to squeeze his hand after he sat there indefinitely, until the air conditioning cut off.  
“And...Steven. The police. They know what happened and are..just saying completely wrong things about it. Lying about it. According to their story, you were hit by a car on the way and that’s why you got so hurt.”  
He felt the anger boil inside of himself as his father tightened the hand on his shoulder. He waited for the both of them to become somber again before the breath held by the room was let out and Greg could speak.  
“Remember when you fell off the guard rail and hit your arm on the rock? Same deal, we had to go to the hospital for it. ‘Xcept now it’s your collarbone, and left arm, and I don’t know all these medical things, and I think it’s ridiculous that they’re keeping you in here for this long, and where is a decent place to buy a wheelchair to take you back home with once you’re…”  
“Dad.”  
They stayed like that for a long, long while. Eventually, Steven’s eyes drooped shut. The painkillers were working its way more into his system. Greg didn’t let go, but a few minutes afterwards, Greg put his free hand on his son’s shoulder, slowly, slowly squeezing, slowly, slowly letting slack, repeating every ten minutes. He fell even more deeply into sleep, and he let himself go.  
And by the time it was Spinel, Connie, Amethyst, and Garnet’s time to visit, he was out.  
________  
By then, it was late afternoon. Because of the hospital’s policy of only four visitors at a time, Garnet volunteered to be kicked out to the holding until Greg was willing to leave.  
Before he did, Garnet put a hand on his shoulder.  
“He’s a lot more resilient than the humans I’ve met here, Greg.”  
“I know. I’m just…” Sweat was still beading on his forehead. So were tears on the lower half of his cheeks, but Garnet disregarded it. “He’s my son, you know? I mean, anybody’d be worried for him, but he’s my son, you know? I have to keep him s...I have to take care of him.”  
Garnet nodded before tilting her head down. “Rose was special. We Gems are special. And if anybody’d noticed anything about us, we’re tougher than we look.”  
After Greg left, Garnet told the rest to quiet down; their talking’d almost woken up a baby being walked by her mother down the hallway.  
“Huh. Guess it’d be like Steven to fall asleep like that on us right when we need him not to, wouldn’t it be?”  
“Spinel. We’ve been over this in the car. We know that’s not true.” Pearl, through and through.  
She took a ringlet of Steven’s hair, twirled it in her finger while Connie squeezed his hand. He didn’t react. “I know. I try, but sometimes what my brain tells me to do is different than what I want it to.” She sounded spoiled, but both her and the rest understood the heart of it was a lot deeper than that. Garnet was the one to take the seat Greg left, her being used to sit down because of her being so tall.  
There was a potent hush. Amethyst leaned against the wall.  
“Those kids. Those kids. I should’ve known about them.”  
“Well, what we should’ve known about them isn’t as important as what we do know about them. And what we do know about them is that we need to investigate them.” Pearl.  
And that’s why almost an hour later, after Connie volunteered to stay with her husband for the night, the rest moseyed their way home and not to any place that could give them a much-needed distraction before the hell that was their new, pseudo segregated life in Rehoboth began.  
____  
Life in Rehoboth, in terms of the people there, was surprisingly better than that of Beach City. There was no slurs or attacks. They reacted with fascination, and Gem after Gem was called to interviews, either in person or on paper. But Garnet, now the spokesperson for them all, had to refuse over and over, saying that the best thing for them was to keep a low profile. Pearl was about to protest against Garnet for calling the shots, but figured out everyone would have called this shot and decided to leave her alone.  
But they were free, as far as them being out in public went. Although they hadn't had the time or nerve to visit it yet, they saw that Rehoboth had a boardwalk with a haunted house and a spinning teacup ride that could be seen even from what could be barely called a highway next to it. It had its own beach, shared with what Beach City had.  
And what was most extraordinary was the love there. There were men who used the beach environment to share those tender moments with women, and women with men.  
But Garnet was enthralled when she saw no one reacting to a woman in a yellow dress with flowers taking her lover by the hand and kissing her in the way only Sapphire knew Ruby did to her. Garnet had been in the middle of telling the rest how to properly tell the monarchs of certain tri-solar system planets the state of Steven and why he couldn't visit them yet when she noticed what the woman in the yellow dress did. In a matter of six seconds, the both of them were unfused and laughing, splashing each other in the waves in their own pattern. In a flash, Ruby took Sapphire in a half-tackle. Like in all moments like this, even with Steven and Connie, Spinel squeezed her eyes shut and only opened them when Garnet tapped her shoulder, still laughing. She didn't say the word "unnatural" once for the time they spent in Rehoboth.  
But Rehoboth wasn't home.  
It sunk into Greg first. But he could slowly see the other Gems shifting into discomfort when they figured out a certain ride in Beach City's boardwalk wasn't in Rehoboth's, or when they realized that there wasn't such a thing as a "Gem sect" or "Gem community"; they were virtually the only ones in the town. He could see how Amethyst spent more time in the entertainment system in Randy''s place, trying for hours a day to set up her decades-old gaming equipment. He could see Pearl, his treasure, as more methodical and more of a perfectionist than before, almost becoming Randy's personal servant. He could tell how Randy could see by a change in Greg's expression or behavior, so slight, that meant he was also uncomfortable.  
And Greg realized how much pain that gave both of them.  
It was past dinnertime by the time Garnet spoke up. "We need to start this investigation now. If we don't, we may never get to it."  
Greg clenched his fists for the slightest of seconds at the word "investigation", but only Pearl noticed. "Alright." He put his hands up, almost spilled his cup of joe. "I'll help as much as I can, but Steven needs me. And we don't have a lightpad in this town."  
Garnet nodded the slight way no one else could without looking like they were just listening to music. "We have to lay some ground rules. Pearl?"  
Pearl immediately stood up, slammed her hands down on the dinner table hard enough for Spinel to gasp.  
"Right." She slumped her shoulders slightly, took a deep breath. "First of all, we have to make sure we tell Steven. Or try to, those painkillers are flooring him. But with Connie, we have no excuse."  
Not thinking, Spinel stretched her body for a piece of notebook paper and a pen, even twisting around the banister to go upstairs to the office; Randy turned pale as an Irishman like him possibly could before stepping back towards the doorway. Amethyst sighed a little, started taking notes.  
"Next, we have to only ask what we need to know out of people and leave. We don't know if there's anyone who's clearly anti-Gem, although the landscape here says they're generally not. In any case, we can't reveal their identity- only how they know what they know. If they visited somewhere the...the stupid stonethrowers did, things like that."  
Amethyst nodded. For a minute, Greg didn't know whether to take her into an embrace or to teach her a worse insult. By the time he stopped being conflicted, Pearl had already started speaking again.  
"Next, we have to provide protection for them should the perpetrators come looking for them. We've already done this in terms of anonymity," she said before turning to Garnet for a few moments, "but we should provide our contact info should anything happen to him. But after all of this, we have to get to business. Find out where they may be, given the starting information about where we've previously sighted them."  
Pearl sounded like a math problem. Amethyst rolled her eyes quickly enough for Pearl not to notice.  
"But the hardest part is one of the final steps: collecting evidence without infringing on their personal property. We have to somehow catch them in the act of being anti-Gem, whether we find it or someone else does. And whatever we catch them with has to be made public."  
Spinel spoke up. "We can set them up! I volunteer to be the bait!"  
Garnet huffed hard enough for her visor to fog. "Spinel. A: if anyone's going to be the bait, it's not going to be you. You're just as vulnerable as Greg now. B: even if someone other than you was the bait, we're not doing that."  
"Unless we're skilled enough…" Spinel curled into a smile of what she hoped was mischief.  
"No. We're not the Diamonds." Garnet this time.  
"She does have a point, through." Before she continued, Amethyst looked back and saw Randy was still silent in the doorway. "Setting them up's probably the best way to get evidence it was them. But we have to keep it natural."  
Greg shifted back and forth. "I'm still not totally sure about doing this. But I do agree. Garnet?"  
She nodded this time, followed by Randy. Greg glanced at Pearl with a look of worried warmth, and she replied with a slew of all justifiable reasons as to why this shouldn't be done. When she was finished, through, she also mentioned how since she came on Earth, she put her faith more in democracy than monarchy and sat down.  
They figured they’d put it in the early middle of the investigation. Putting it earlier than that would cause the perpetrators to start finding out exactly what they were doing. And putting it later would make it more apparent to everyone what they were doing. If they put it in fairly randomly, it would make it seem like it happened fairly randomly.  
In order to give Connie a break and vice versa when it came to Greg, the both of them agreed to alternate each day until Steven spent a month longer in the hospital until there wasn’t any chance of more internal bleeding at the very beginning of March. Since there was still no lightpad, Steven happily let them take some of his income so the Gems could buy a van rental of their own and keep Greg with his precious own. During the first time that Greg came to the hospital, he told Steven of their plan. Steven replied with nothing, but did nod when Greg asked him if this was really, truly what he wanted and that they needed to know now, or else God knows when they’d get it started.  
It was right after midnight on February 3rd that Connie started typing up what looked like business cards. Contact info. In the heat of that hour, Connie decided she’d be the keeper; six people running around with all of this info would be only a little less dangerous than spitting on a Diamond’s throne. And she’d keep them tucked in pockets about as deep as the entirety of her shirt until she was very, very sure whoever she was interviewing wasn’t planning on thinking Gems were the product of Hell anytime soon. No compassion, no protection. Simple as that. And when Connie woke up at noon, the whole of them were gathering together and trying to collect what they knew so far. Anything. She looked at her watch. Anytime now, Greg would come home and she’d have to switch with him and make the trudge to the Capitol.  
“Alright,” began Garnet. “So, let’s start right at the beginning. It may be obvious, but we need to know every detail before they get muddled up in all the rest.” Amethyst nodded, having been silently chosen as the official scribe. “When did we first see them?”  
“During the protest,” said Connie, who was greeted with at least a “good morning- um, afternoon” or a nod from everyone. “the protest when the house was trashed, Steven told me he noticed a group of teenagers. I looked out, and they were all Caucasian except for 2 of them, who had skin kind of like mine. Although it was hard to tell from here.”  
“Except 2?” said Pearl. “So you know how many there were?”  
Connie paused to scratch her still-fresh bindi in a nervous habit. “Uh, yeah. Kind of. I mean, at the time. Some of the members may have left, some new ones may have come. But there were...there were 8 of them, I think.”  
Randy furrowed his brow. “Wait. Since Steven was the one who saw them when they were...throwing rocks at him...shouldn’t we be asking him?” He looked down at his watch. “Ugh. Mass starts in a few hours. Afraid I won’t be much help to any of you then.”  
Connie gave him a warm nod. “That’s alright.”  
“Right,” said Pearl. “Connie, Greg when I ask him, you two have to make sure you do this. Although I know the painkillers Steven has will get in the way.”  
“Anyway...” said Spinel, wrapping herself out of half-habit in a Mickey Mouse blanket she’d gotten that Christmas. “Back to the eight?”  
“Yeah,” picked up Connie. “I remember there being eight of them, and the tallest one had red hair. Like Randy’s.” Amethyst paused, drew a short little sketch that made her laugh and Pearl shoot her a death glare. “And,” Connie said, “I remember the tall one wearing Wrangler’s.”  
“So you did get close enough to see the design?” asked Garnet.  
“Yeah,” Connie replied, before something ugly and dark started creeping up on her face. “Although the slurs were enough to send me away once I noticed that. Didn’t notice anything else after that.”  
“Anything else have anything to add?” Garnet asked.  
Silence all around.  
Garnet clapped her hands. The courtroom was adjourned.  
“Soon as Greg gets back, we’ll tell him and see if Steven told him anything else.”  
By 6 PM, Randy was still at Mass, and wouldn’t be back for about an hour. Greg did arrive around dinnertime, but he didn’t know he was supposed to be questioning Steven this whole time; he’d been too focused on comforting him. Pearl couldn’t help but take ahold of his shoulders and kiss the back of his head.  
All Pearl could think of saying was “you’re a good man. Don’t doubt it, no matter how much you try to.”


	15. Season 7, Chapter 2- Smoloviec

In Gem, “smoloviec” is the best translation for any inky, black substance. In some planets acknowledged in the Homeworld database, this comes from the niezpol, a plant that secretes a substance similar to this.  
It is not known why, but in response to extreme negative emotion over a period of time, smoloviec can develop on Gem bodies.

February 19th, it was Connie’s turn to stay with Steven. By the time she left, they had some sort of a working story going on. There were eight of them. Most were boys, but there were at least 3 girls. All of them were wearing some sort of black hoodie with some sort of text on it at the time of the stoning. And Steven could vividly remember the curly redheaded, clearly Irish leader wearing his “Keep Beach City Mutt-Free” t-shirt.  
They’d came to Steven’s property a total of 4 times before they ambushed him in the Capitol. The first was the protest. The second, third, and fourth time were just them looking at the property line. Probably not doing anything too analytical, other than seeing if Steven would leave the house.  
They knew what time Steven was going to go to the cooking class by the flyers Connie handed out.  
They were from Beach City. And, if there age was any giveaway, they weren’t going to be going anywhere. Greg bit his lip, remembered when he was around their age in the early nineties, when their parents decided that now was the time to tighten their grips on him. Now was the only time that this was a clear advantage.  
“Guys. We need to go to Beach City” was how Amethyst very directly approached the elephant in the room.  
“Yeah,” rebutted Greg, “but how? It’s in the human sector of Beach City, and the area where most of this mess comes from. I mean...I can pretend to be a tourist and everything. Actually, I think that’s our best bet. When I pretended to be a tourist while they were still looking at our property, we live on the west. So..after cussing me out the way I never would to Steven, hehe… they told me that the rides were over on the east. So if we actually went to the rides…”  
“‘We’ meaning who?” asked Spinel, who up until now had been playing with her hair that now desperately needed cutting now that it was growing like human hair. “I mean, ya already know how much I had to play dress-up just to walk a little west, right? The lightpad I came down from was in the center of town!”  
“Then it’s got to be the humans.” When Garnet spoke, everyone else couldn’t help but look at her. “Greg and Randy, the both of you have to go. Just the two of you.”  
Greg looked back. Though he was expressionless, Randy was already putting his hand on Greg’s shoulder. Almost on his neck.  
“Wh-I-” Something shot up in Greg’s mind; something else shot up on the outside. He frantically pretended to sip his tea and that it was the heat from it that was making his face red. He took a deep breath or two, looked at Pearl to try and calm himself down. It wasn’t until she looked at him with the warmest look he’d seen in a long, long while that he started speaking again. “I mean, does it have to be today?! Maybe Connie’d be better suited to this. She hasn’t already tried to pose as a tourist yet.”  
Amethyst clicked and unclicked her pen a few times out of habit. "Not really. Hate to say it, but she's a lot more famous than you are, Greg. Even with Mr. Universe."  
Greg laughed, but he couldn't ignore Randy shooting a short-fused glare at Amethyst.  
"Yeah, you're right, I guess."  
He looked back at Randy. Randy looked back at him, and it continued for the longest time, least in Greg's eyes. But Randy grabbed his old leather coat before Pearl could say a word.  
"Alright, then. Let's get this show on the road."  
____  
Before they left, Greg ran a hand through his hair and found another chunk of it come out. He sighed, looked on through his mirror. And he took the time to cut his hair with a pair of kitchen scissors.  
It looked like a military cut. "Classy", as his parents would put it. Not like he'd be seeing them anytime soon, though; treating a kid's dreams like they were something painful coming out from your as was enough to shake things up with them.  
He looked in the mirror and chuckled. Boy, would Steven be mad tomorrow when he visited him. If he wasn't dead to the world due to his painkillers, that is.  
He kissed Spinel on the forehead, messed up her hair a little while he pretended it was Steven's.  
And he kissed Pearl for a long and tender time in front of Randy, although it wouldn't be anything a kid would be repulsed to.  
As they both went into Randy's sedan and headed out onto Coastal Highway , still with its new smell despite being only a few years old, they were quiet. Dead quiet. Randy was used to it, not having a wife or children, so anything Greg was feeling swooped under his radar for now and the 45 minutes it took to get there.  
But as they headed out onto the boardwalk, Randy found that the distraction of it all was starting to fade away. He hadn't dared to go so far as to go on a ride, with or without Greg, but he'd walked with him up and down the boardwalk and learned how to ignore the seagull-calls of the game staffers.  
It was Randy that spotted something. "Looks like me."  
"Huh?"  
He paused, brought his voice down. "There's a kid over there. Looks like me. The ringleader, remember? You've talked about him."  
Greg took a good look at him. There he was, but he looked...alone. Very much alone. He was running one of the games that involved a free goldfish if you shot water into a hole, but he was alone. And he looked...dirty. He looked clean enough on the outside, but he had a sort of sadness that carried his dirt with him.  
But he was sure he had to take a closer look. And there was only one way he could without looking suspicious.  
"Step right up" was all the leader said.  
The first thing Greg recognized was his nametag. He gave him two dollars before taking the water gun, for a moment hoping it was a real one with all of his being. He unclenched it just as quickly- he’d been trained to by his own son. "Timmy, huh? I know somebody named Timmy." That was only a half-truth; he saw someone volunteering over at the hospital named Timmy who happened to pass by him in the hallway once.  
Timmy nodded, and it gave him a genuine smile that gave an undeniably human rise to his freckles.  
“You do, huh? Well, might as well name your goldfish that, then.”  
No, the conversation couldn’t die there. But he couldn’t extend it anymore without being at least a little suspicious. He didn’t win the goldfish, but he kept on playing enough fo Timmy to cough up at least a little info. By the third time he played, Timmy let something slip that went something like “in situations like this, I go to the church up the road and pray to my patron saint. But that’s just a Catholic thing.”  
That’s it. He had his lead.  
And the best part?  
Tomorrow was Sunday.  
____  
It was Randy’s job to make a few rounds later, see if he could find Randy with anyone else that might’ve been the poeple who helped him to stone Steven. But there was nobody. Just him and his dirty sadness.  
But what Randy did do was obtain a few tips from those who were probably from the Capitol area and were talking about what happened to Steven. Eight, they put it at. There were three talking about it, two who’d heard about it before, and one who was just now telling them.  
“Yeah,” she said. “I know a guy who saw it happen. And I heard they almost all left in the middle of it.”  
“‘Xcept for who?”. His brow rose the same way Greg had always been accustomed to during Meet n’ Greet nights while he was still a part of Mr. Universe.  
“‘Xcept for four people. A redhead, someone who was either Hispanic or Indian, and 2 little kids.”  
He made a few more rounds.  
And when they added the notes to Amethyst’s roster that night, he found he wasn’t disappointed with its lack of being specific.  
____  
February 20th, second to last Sunday of the month, Randy was the one to go to his church like usual. Seeing how it was Catholic and all, bringing a Gem or Greg in would make it loads more suspicious, investigation or no. And besides, Greg was visiting Steven; Connie was back at the house now .  
He sat in the back in order to give himself a better vantage point, as well as feign politeness so that others could sit in the front. He looked a little to the right, and he’d be damned if he didn’t see them.  
A redhead, someone who was either Hispanic or Indian, and 2 little...no, 1 little kid.  
During the Communion line, where everyone shifted closer to who they were going to Mass with in the first place in order to feel as if they weren’t being separated, with Randy standing off by himself, he realized the little kid was part of a different family.  
Should he, he wondered, give up the pursuit?  
He tossed around with that idea until it was time to put it into practice and Mass was over, after little to no time spent in prayer. He tossed the idea away soon as he saw them, thought of those he left back home. He finally had someone to think of, someone more than the patients he had in his chiropractor’s office. Thought of Greg. One of his most trusted friends. And Randy didn’t have any desire for men in the least, but that didn’t stop his heart from breaking when the time came to tell Greg this after he started to pursue Randy this way.  
So he sat on a bench close enough to hear them, stayed on his phone. Googled new exercises he could try at the gym and ways to decorate his office, quickly switched them to ways he could accomodate for a family before physically shaking his head and going back to the old ones.  
It was seven minutes in- the perfect moment. The church was still flooded with people, but everyone important had thought to leave.  
“Hey, Rishaba,” began who was undeniably Timmy, “you think we should’ve brought along Carlton or Patrick or here? Just for extra support?”  
“No,” replied the woman standing next to him with a hint of an Indian accent, a little more than Connie’s, but still sharing most of the nuances she had. “Would’ve made us a whole lot more suspicious. Besides, they had to dispose of the rocks, right?”  
That did it. Timmy started to record on his phone, just as the two of the were getting closer to him and farther than the middle of the church.  
No. Patience. What was the use of recording now? If he showed this to the police, no matter how unbiased to Gems they were or no matter how much evidence they showed, this would make it crystal-clear that they’d launched an investigation. There had to be a reason, something else they could be incriminated for.  
He pressed the stop button.  
He had to aggravate them.  
He moved a little closer just as the meat of the conversation began.  
“Also, call me Rich. Only my maa-ji calls me by my full name.”  
“Sorry,” and there were waves of apathy in it.  
There were moments of agonizing silence. Now, more than half of the congregation was out of church.  
“Besides, Timmy, I’m only here because…”  
“Because you’re my friend, right?”  
A laugh from her. “Yeah. But what I was going to say, specifically, was that I’m here because I hate Gems as much as you do.”  
“Fucking sons of bitches,” began Timmy. “What we did was just the start.”  
A slight amount of horror recoiled on his face, but died with a breeze that came and went outside.  
Alright.  
Deep breath in.  
Deep breath out.  
He pressed the record button.  
“Hey,” began Randy.  
They didn’t jump. Okay, that was a good start. But everything would crumble into pieces if they said anything along the lines of, “hey, you’re that guy from the carnival!”, even if it was just to address the fact that he attended the same church as them.  
“I couldn’t help but hear you guys’ conversation. I might be old,” he chuckled, but felt a twinge of insult. “but I’ve got my own point of view, and I’d like to chip in.”  
Anger distorted Randy’s face, but it wiped clean like the waves slapping a towel free of sand.  
“Go ahead,” said Rich, formerly Rishaba.  
Randy took a deep breath. “Look, me going to Beach City like this is only once in awhile. I’m actually from…” Think. You have a Doctorate, you can master this. “From up north, and I go down here around this time of year to beat the crowds. But my point is...you can’t close yourself off, alright? Just because you haven’t...haven’t known them doesn’t mean you’ve got the right to make judgements about them.”  
Time to hit him where it hurt.  
“Timmy... lots of places in the Bible said that, you know.”  
Anger now warped Timmy’s face into a hundred-year-old piece of wood left on the pier. He gave Randy a swift punch to the nose that would make Jasper scream for her life.  
“Timmy-” in five seconds, ten, Rich’d ran from the building.  
Dammit. He hoped against hope that his phone camera hadn’t been somehow smashed. He clutched his nose to stop the bleeding; years of going to the gym and years of boxing practice had trained him to be a rod of steel against pain like this.  
Timmy turned a shade of red slightly darker than his hair. “You seriously think you can go on and attack me like this? My beliefs? Look at me. Look at me!”  
He did. Better than getting another punch.  
“My dad already lost my job to them, and since then, my family’s been buried up to here in bills we can’t do shit to pay! I’ve already been attacked, left and right, by those Gem- those things! You’re one of them! You’re one of them!”  
Silence. The last of the parishioners filed out of the church, nearly sprinting.  
“Then…” he winced a little, but mostly at the sound of his voice. He then realized the blood dripping on the ground would serve its own purpose as evidence, and slowly let his nose go, flicking the blood on the ground off his hands for good measure. “Then let me go back where I came from.”  
Timmy paused. Paused for too long of a time. Clenched his fists. Almost unclenched them, before clenching them again. After fifteen seconds, they’d completely unclenched.  
Then he chuckled. “I like the sound of that.”  
As Randy walked back out to his sedan, clutched his nose with one hand and stopped the video on his phone with the other in order to call the cops, he at first dreaded the amount of work they’d have to do later on in the investigation. But he later realized that he had all the evidence he needed both for this case and the next, if he was lucky. Once the police saw the video that was hopefully recording in his pocket and started their own investigations, one thing may lead to another. Some detail may be recovered that they wouldn’t dream of having access to. Emails, texts, phone calls, objects in Timmy’s room back at home.  
He smiled and drove his way out to urgent care.  
__  
“So he was the bait.”  
“Spinel!”  
“What? I'm right, aren’t I?”  
No one said a word, except for Garnet, who made a “hmm-mm” noise and shifted in her seat. Helped her cope with the noises in her head.  
"Great!" Pearl threw her hands in the air. "Now we have two people, two people in the hospital! How could this get any worse?!"  
There was a knock on the door. Garnet was the one to get up from her seat and answer, hoping against hope that it was Randy.  
But when she saw who was there, she thanked everyone and everything she ever knew that someone like Pearl or Amethyst hadn’t answered the door, even if they were no longer in Maryland.  
It was a cop, golden badge shining in the living room light and everything.  
“‘Xcuse me,” he said. “I’d like to ask you and...whatever these things are… a few questions.”  
___  
They were from Maryland, which is where it happened. So they didn’t do squat, as Randy would say later when he was released from urgent care with a few tissues stuffed up his nose, some red blessing the ground on his way in and Connie rushed in to help clean it up. As the hours passed by, though, they found that to be somewhat of an exaggeration. At times, since it happened to Randy, he would accompany the police officers at the scenes that the found as soon as they determined it was safe and as soon as they found any evidence they needed. As Randy predicted, they had access to things like Timmy’s address, his emails, his phone calls, his texts.  
His address. The police didn’t disclose this to him- if this happened, then the amount of retribution would be sky-high.  
But it was in the texts that they found a jackpot.  
He hadn’t had the sense to delete his texts, at least all of them. What Timmy didn’t know, to his horror, was that the police also had access to the server he was using in order to send his texts, and that deleted or not, the server would keep his texts for essentially all of eternity. There, they found plans between him and at least 7 or 8 other people, Rich included. They’d found a group chat they’d set up called “Maul the Mutt”. The only thing the police showed that wasn’t related to Timmy punching Randy. Each name sunk deep into Randy, and eventually Greg, and eventually Steven in moments when the medicine let up and he was allowed to come to. But the only texts from the group chat the police had thought to show him were texts said afterwards about the incident where Randy punched Timmy.  
They’d had a falling-out. “youve really done it this time, timmy. you’re fucking crazy” was one of the texts. There were texts asking some why they blocked him, and some asking why others simply weren’t answering.  
And the last one?  
“I thought you were my friend.”  
Rich.  
And what the Maryland police also never thought to show Randy once he found out the amount of Gems he was housing up in Delaware?  
A cardboard box in Timmy’s father’s ramshackle garage.  
All full of now-red rocks.  
Timmy ended up being sent to the local prison for half a year for what he did to Randy. Families, friends argued for Timmy, saying how much of his life was being taken away from him and how he was still a teenager, how he was just a boy, how much prison was twisting the nooks and crannies of his soul. So the sentence was unexplainably lowered to three months.  
But all the rest went back to school, back to their jobs, back to their lives without so much as a penny being taken out of their pockets by the law.  
__  
But all of this would happen over time, with Timmy being sent to jail around the time Steven was discharged from the hospital.  
For now, it was February 23rd. Greg was back from the hospital to switch with Connie, angrier than the Gems had seen him since they’d had to come to Randy’s house in the first place. Randy had just been released from urgent care, and the Gems had been asked question after question to no end. But as soon as the questions were over, they decided they had to do something. Steven’s absence was only worsening tensions between Gems, and there was no piece of technology from Homeworld, no rule from there, that was going to solve this.  
But culture from Homeworld might take a step to solving this.  
So each Gem gathered together and shared pieces of mythology that resonated inside of them. It was a hum that’d been in their hearts for thousands of years, stories that’d kept them going in either the heat of war or the heat of self-hatred. They argued a little, but they arranged a coherent creation story that generalized all of them. Each of them tossed a few myths of their own. Garnet gathered mostly Sapphire’s knowledge about the story, but she’d managed to write down the story of the first fusion. Spinel had wrote her own stories in the garden, but soon realized a few of them were from her subconscious of stories she’d been told since she emerged from the kindergarten designed for comfort Gems to the Diamonds a few blocks from the capital palace. So there were a few zingers in there of how Tovarsysky, the first Gem, single handedly assassinated Duke Gaphod-Za IV from the nearby Cancri-49 E many millions of years ago. Amethyst had her own myths, mostly about the war she’d been born after, that she’d borrowed from Jasper but toned down significantly. And Pearl wrote down her own stories...painful stories of love that’d been conjured thousands of years ago, when the Great Diamond Authority first tried to stamp out romantic relationships, her favorite being of a cruel jeweller who tossed out a gem from his home after the gem refused become a part of any marriage ring but a woman’s.  
They contacted the local elementary school’s principal, and the last thing Amethyst documented in her poor, unused notes was the “I don’t see why not” he responded with.  
On the way to the school up in the northern part of Rehoboth, Greg and Pearl were the ones to go over the rules. This is a public area. You can’t get out any weapons, you can’t pick up and hold the little kids no matter how cute they are, you can’t do this and that. But there was an unmistakable glint in each of their eyes when they turned the corner.  
Pearl was the first one to half-sprint from the van, book of myths in hand. Each of the rest shuffled, excitement still undeniably in their steps as they each went to their respective classrooms.  
And Greg was the one to tap Spinel’s shoulder, give her a minnie noogie that made her laugh so loud a kid looked at the both of them; with a little protesting from her, he got a very noticeable puff of sand off her dress.  
“You sure you can do this by yourself, kiddo?”  
“‘Course I can, Mr. Greg! You’ve just gotta read this to little kids, right?”  
“Yeah, but...I’ve just got a bad feeling.” He put a hand on her shoulder. Troubling thoughts came to him of what would happen if word leaked to the humans, regardless of whether or not this was Delaware they were in. “If the kids start to make fun of you, or if, I dunno, if the adults start looking at you like you’re a…”  
“Like a stain on your shoe?”  
“Yeah, yeah! You’re getting the hang of it!”  
“I need to work on that one. ‘Stain on your shoe’ I got right, but I said ‘getting the handle of it’ last time I tried that. Slang’s a little hard for me, but I think I can do it.”  
“Good going, just….in case any of that happens, you come right back out to me. I’ll get Pearl, and we’ll all go home, alright?”  
“Okay!” She put a thumbs up.  
For the rest of the time, he stayed out in the hallway, pretended to read an extra copy the Gems made of myths left for him. Flipped open the first page. It was supposed to be for distraction. He was supposed to keep a lookout. But he was failing miserably, and some part of him loved it.  
“This is the story of our creation.  
Millions and millions of years before the first kolonia, the first colony, was made, there was nothing on our beloved planet of Sviatdom (Homeworld) except for the blow of sharp winds and the desert heat. As we would later discover in our travels, there had been sentient lifeforms on this planet who, in an attempt to create enough energy for everyone, created this desert instead. The same carbon that makes the diamonds that so ruled us took over the atmosphere, swallowing it so the lifeforms could not breathe and then died, their bones slowly falling into the ground.  
It was the carbon and the heat, combined with silicates such as beryl, that made us. But after the heat that trapped whatever was needed- the carbon, the beryl- into the rocks our gems would form in, there was a long period of coolness. We were trapped in caves for millions of years while the carbon and beryl became solid and formed the gems that made us. Under this cool temperature, we became what the humans of Earth call ‘women’- if we had stayed in hotter conditions, we would become men.  
After these millions of years, our gems created the holograms that allow everyone to see us as we are right now. But to make room, we had to break the rock, and so thousands of us hatched from a single cave and staggered out of it towards the surface.  
Now, since there was so much carbon, there were so many Diamonds that emerged. Around the entirety of the planet, the Diamonds fought and killed each other, the winner having rule over all of Sviatdom. In the end, there were three. The White and the Yellow Diamond that had won over all the rest found they could not kill the other and agreed to rule side by side. Along the way, White had carried her sister Blue Diamond, who had formed next to her in the cave and had helped White survive and had tended to her wounds that the other Diamonds inflicted on her. White could not bear to kill her, and after a terrible fight, Yellow agreed not to as well.  
The three Diamonds migrated towards a city that the rest of the Gems around them followed them to. They established Kindergartens- which were Gem-making facilities- to fill the roles that were needed, with the Bismuths being made first.  
Soon, the city was built. The Gems were created.  
And the rest of our history is made known to you.”  
There was more, but Greg was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. He made the smallest of sighs in understanding- anyone would be suspicious of a middle-aged man in a stained white tank top sitting alone right next to a kids’ classroom. “Oh, sorry about that. I’ll leave in a bit.”  
It just then became apparent that the woman who’d tapped on his shoulder had the badge “ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL” on it, and his eyes dilated in what he thought was terror. “Not just you. Everyone else will have to leave in the next five minutes, or I’ll be forced to have the teachers forcibly remove all of you. School policy. Nobody from extraterrestrial origin allowed on the premises.”  
It took eight seconds for Greg to process what the woman said, and then another two to wonder why and how someone could possibly be this vicious. Not even Spinel’s poison matched what was coming out of her voice.  
And in the eight seconds that Greg tried to process it, Pearl sat in the other classroom, her eyes halfway off in the distance. All the stories of love had battered her head. Why was she successful in it now, she wondered? Why was it giving a good turn to her now, when for so long she’d struggled with it, been turned upside down and inside out for it, torn apart? And when was the day when it would all turn wrong? It would eventually come; she knew it would. She couldn’t play this game with Greg for much longer. Not that she didn’t want to- she simply knew it would end.  
The kids were doing some sort of game of their own with probability with a spinner, the teacher having some hint of worry in her eyes.. Pearl’s own eyes were caught in the arrow’s tornado when the teacher wearing a two-dollar floral-print t-shirt grabbed her by the shoulder.  
Pearl flinched. “Sorry, I’ll move out of-”  
“Look. I don’t know why you thought you could be in here, doing your little song and dance. But it’s hurting the students, and you need to stop.”  
“Excuse m-”  
“But you gotta leave. Assistant principal said so.”  
“We...I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you this, but we did talk to the principal.”  
“I looked it up better than you did. The assistant principal can override statements when dealing with pe...things like you. It’s considered private, so the assistant principal can do what she wants.”  
Two kids sat by and watched. One a boy, one a girl. The girl crouched behind the boy and gripped his hand, but the boy sat criss-cross applesauce with a glint of what he thought was naughtiness in his eye. But he knew something was wrong. Later, in his teens, he would realize that glint was determination.  
Determination that went nowhere.  
She was half-shoved out of the room by the teacher. Half was enough, and she, being a tiny bird of a woman, had fallen on the ground. Spinel yelled from her classroom, ran out to help her up before the assistant principal did her own half-shoving; she had the SRO by her side, who saw Spinel’s dress and made sure to put his hands while he shoved her to where by the time they were all out the door, tears were rolling down Spinel’s cheeks.  
“H-he…”  
They were in the van by the time Spinel sputtered out her story to Garnet, who had known the way the teachers were looking at her and had decided to leave early. That was what made Garnet’s hands clench, but what the first thing Garnet said was, “They had no right to do that. No right. We all know that, even if a piece of paper says none of us do.”  
That evening when both Randy and dinner came, he brought in a letter. “From the school.”  
And no matter how kindhearted they looked, no matter how much they’d beat themselves up for it afterwards, they all saw at least a drop of red when they read the paper. It told them, in short, that they wouldn’t be allowed on school grounds. Any further “infringements on the students’ intellectual peace” would be met with thousands of dollars of fines. Somehow, they’d hurt their minds. Somehow, they’d done more than that, put an intellectual scar on them. Hell, they’d even allowed for therapy for those students they’d visited.  
Connie took a long, shaky breath, and shredded the paper before they could read the “thank you for your understanding.” ___ 

It happened in the middle of the night, when Greg was asleep, waiting for Connie to come home.  
"Greg! Pearl! Come up here! Come up here! My eyes! Come up here!"  
Greg let go of Pearl as she frantically crept out from his embrace, their eyes crushed by the weight of only 2 hours of sleep. Immediately, the both of them thought the worst. They knew they shouldn't have left the cleaning supplies in the bathroom. They almost tripped each other running up the stairs, and even Garnet and Amethyst took places at the bottom of the stairs once Greg and Pearl had stumbled their way up.  
"Spinel! We're coming! Just...just stay right there, alright?!"  
Pearl prepared himself for something gruesome. She looked at Greg in utter terror and shook as she opened the door.  
Spinel was sitting, collecting black tar in the palms of her hands, memorized in their pools. She looked at what she could call her mother and father if she felt sentimental enough, looked at how she always felt them.  
And they looked back at her, and the tears, the marks Rose had carved on her thousands of years ago, was gone.  
“God,” was all Greg could say. “God, I-”  
Pearl let out a whoop, called out a few celebratory words in Gem before embracing her, laughing, uncaring of the tar that spread like a gallon of ink across her floral-print dress.  
“God, I never realized how green your eyes were.”  
Pearl looked back at Greg, tears in her own eyes. Spinel had a smile bigger than what she’d had in even those past months. The months of unconditional love shed on her, the months of them sacrificing everything they had and everything they hoped to be just to welcome in Spinel like she was her own. And as Pearl let the tears drip, Greg brought himself to her bed and patted her shoulder.  
“God, they’re beautiful, aren’t they, Pearl?”  
___  
Garnet was the one to tell Randy about how Gems determined their honorary birthdays.  
In Homeworld, there was no such thing as months. It was a desert planet, and each season was just as hot as the last in the day and just as cold as the last in the night. They blended into one season; they had no need to create the concept of multiple seasons. They kept time in events, such as, “fourteen suns after the Beta Kindergarten on Kolonia do Rosa was built”. So there was no need for such a thing as a birthday; the day you emerged was only kept in conversation until another event happened that superseded that.  
For those on Earth, Rose’s Colony, Kolonia do Rosa in Gem, they didn’t see the use of birthdays, although some embraced it. But as for the group that was now in Randy’s house in Rehoboth, Steven was the one who’d devised the new birthday system when he was only a little past his own eighth birthday. It was a flighty thing. Steven suggested that if the Gems couldn’t remember the day they emerged, they could instead make their birthday the day something important happened in their life. Garnet’s was in January 29th, the day they’d unfused and fused again for the first time in front of Steven when he was a toddler. Amethyst’s was June 14th, the day they’d went to the Beta Kindergarten and untangled her mind “like my pair of earbuds”, as she’d say later. Pearl’s was in April, the day when she’d confided to Steven about Rose’s scabbard. And so on.  
So it was that this day was Spinel’s. February 24th. Her seven thousand and second, they determined. One thousand years from the time she was created to the time Pink had broken the toy that she was, six thousand years for the tears to settle, and two from the time she first came down to Earth when Steven was 16 till now. It wasn’t anything special; all Spinel wanted was a burger at the Greasy Turtle.  
But as time passed, it was clear that all she wanted was those sitting around her at the table. The way they stayed there in one spot and didn’t get up and leave her still stunned her, even after all this time living on Earth. The way Pearl took back her pigtails and brushed her hair on the bench instead of laughing and scoffing at them like the DIamondswould still stunned her. And the way Garnet sat next to her in the backseat and taught her how to play “Punch Buggy” without her threatening to leave Spinel should she make a mistake at it still stunned her.  
It’d been forever since Spinel felt freedom from herself to stop the game. To stop being what not being abandoned required her to be.  
To put her head on the small, banana-shaped pillow in between her and Garnet, and to fall effortlessly asleep.  
_____  
February 26th, on a Saturday two days later, Greg was back from the hospital again with news that at the beginning of March that year, Steven could come home, although he’d only be a little less loopy than before at the hospital with his painkillers.  
It was at noon. Randy was fixing them a famous Delaware blue crab batch and taffy for desert.  
When he was setting down the plates, he saw Garnet, stoic as ever, Amethyst licking her chops, Spinel still getting used to the feeling of her spic-and-span eyes and cheeks...that was it.  
That was it?  
He called for Greg and Pearl. Looked around the house for them, with Spinel flashing Garnet a look of mischief before scarfing down the blue crab, albeit slower than Amethyst. He tried giving them a call, and after ten minutes of them chowing down on blue crab, there was a text for Randy back.  
“Hey, don’t worry about it! She and I are at the fancy Italian place down Coastal Highway and 59th Street. We’re...getting our own food.”  
Oh, jeez.  
But at the same time, Randy couldn’t help but laugh.  
Greg was right.  
After all this time, even after Randy told him he only felt the way about women that Greg did for both, Greg was right.  
He’d found his own peace.  
And that was how he sat in the living room for ten minutes before Amethyst yap-yelped her, “Hey! Crab’s getting cold on your plate by now, I think!”.  
___  
February 27th, it was a Sunday again. Randy went to mass, and Greg and Connie switched out again. Pearl whispered in Connie’s ear what’d happened with her and Greg, and Connie couldn’t help but laugh at how adorable it all was.  
Same way Pearl did when she was helping to put on Steven’s little tux for his wedding with Connie nearly half a year ago.  
___  
On the last night of February, they made the last switch: it was back to Connie with Steven again. Steven, for the first time in a month, had the lucidity to say, “Welp, looks like no more smell of rubbing alcohol, hey, Connie?” in a way that made Connie have to drop the small bag of chips in her hand to support herself against the wall as she was laughing.  
The main reason they’d kept Steven there was to keep a watch on him, to see if there was any more internal bleeding, as well as have him there in case anything else went critically wrong. But now, Connie was reading panel after panel with Steven on how to manage his overly daunting painkillers he was just old enough for the law to say he could have it, how to manage his fractures, and what they should do in case anything more did happen.  
Connie took another good look at him. Most of the bruises in his body had gone away by now, or faded away to a pale yellow, which threw Connie in a loop at first. The bandage over He still had a sling over his left arm and his shoulder, killing two birds in one stone by supporting the both of them at once. And he was still in a wheelchair...that was the consequence of both of his leg bones being shattered by rocks, although, much to Connie’s relief, he’d be out of it mid-May.  
It was in this wheelchair that Connie took Steven, the directions she’d always run through in her head running through again.  
They were back in Beach City. They’d parked in a parking garage meant for tourists, and it was there that Connie tried to bring a little life back to Steven’s eyes. In the quiet of the parking lot, interrupted occasionally by seagulls, she climbed out of the van and gave Steven a kiss on the lips that lasted a long, quiet while for him. He had the sense to put his hands above her waist.  
“C’mon,” said Connie, chuckling. “I wanna show you something, since you’re back.”  
Steven chuckled, although it took him a few seconds to. “You sure you haven’t shown me it already?”  
Connie gave him a playful punch. “Guess I don’t have to worry about you not remembering any of this, huh, killer?”  
In a few minutes, Connie had helped Steven into his wheelchair, and despite all the painkillers, he still winced when he first jolted into it from the van. But the ocean air, even from the slight dampness of the parking garage, whiffed back into his ears and said hello, and in the course of a few seconds this time, he was almost asleep with relaxation.  
So Connie sighed, smiled. Locked the van. Pushed him. When Steven did wake up and look around, he was at the middle of the boardwalk. Scattered to the left and right were shops that he knew, hotels he’d always wanted to sleep in just for the fun of it. And he could’ve sworn he saw The Big Donut’s huge logo off to the side.  
Connie shushed him before getting in front of him, not seeing the oncoming tram. Her henna-and-sunshine shirt painted a picture in front of Steven’s eyes. “Go back to sleep! I want it to be a surprise!”  
The tram’s blue-and-white color scheme seemed to punch Connie in the eye, and she scuttled her way across the boardwalk.  
And when Steven woke up again, he was at the beachfront. Connie was laying on a towel, staring straight in the other direction; Steven couldn’t find out why she didn’t react when he looked at her and watched the sunshine-henna-flag on her shirt wave in the wind.  
“W...whatch’a doin’...Connie…”  
“Oh, you’re awake!” Her eyes were small dolphins looking for fish, jumping,, springing right towards him. “I was just...looking for someone.”  
“Can…” he spotted a family running slowly closer into the waves, the way he and his father did when he was a child. “Can I go to the..water?”  
“Yeah, sure. Just let me get myself situated here…”  
As she tied her hair into a flag of its own, she laid out the plan in her head, among with all the other hundreds having to deal with politics and how to keep her and Steven safe, on how she would have Steven be close to the beach. As Connie wheeled his chair close enough to the sand for the wheels to start sinking in what was now more like mud than sand, Steven only had a little confusion when she asked him to stretch out his legs and hold onto her. So he went ahead and slid out of the chair like the garter snake Greg had found in his backyard and decided to keep to eat all the little pests he had until Spinel unfortunately found it, screaming her pigtails off.  
Of course, Connie had laid almost all the towels she had over Steven’s legs to keep from the casts getting wet. But each tide the time came in, it wasn’t too hard for Steven to take a handful and splash himself. And while Connie gave him a quick kiss goodbye and went back to her book on advancements in space travel that year (mostly to laugh at), he’d manage to take time to do nothing except build himself a little fort out of the wet sand to keep the tourist kids from running all over him while they made their way over him.  
And he’d just finished it when Connie came towards him, looked the same way again. Not at him.  
“Connie? H...honey? Who’re y-”  
It was Greg who first ran towards him, saw he was lying down, nuzzled his hair and accidentally filled it with wet sand. “Connie? Are you sure this is alright? We don’t want his cast to get wet.”  
“His casts? That’s at least five towels he has there. I don’t think I can move his legs.”  
Steven made a delayed chuckle. “I don’t think I could move ‘em without the towels.”  
And Greg had to smile before he made his own place on the wet sand.  
Garnet was the next to come. “Steven, it’s a bad idea to make yourself so vulnerable to those out here.” She spoke again before Steven could say anything. “But I’m glad you’re back. Be careful.” On the last sentence, she’d whipped her head towards a boy who was collecting seashells just a few feet away from Steven.  
Pearl, Spinel, and Amethyst all came in quick succession, wrapping up a conversation on how thanks to Greg, they all became fans of classic rock, but metal was a bit too much for all of them. But as soon as they saw everyone gathering over a lump with black hair and a ridiculous amount of beach towels on the lower half of his body, they all came running. Spinel and Amethyst both sprinted towards him, yelled his name. But while Amethyst stooped down next to Steven and started a conversation with him on how great it was he was back and just how scary was the hospital and how she wouldn’t mind going to the hospital just to see for herself what it was like, Spinel ran ahead and went in for an overhead hug. But she quickly noticed how that would look and wanted to bury her head in sand like birds did the way people talked about.  
They stayed there until the sun set, although Connie felt how his beach towels were starting to dampen after 20 minutes of them talking like that. They did what some of the more steelhearted tourists did and stayed at the beach till sunset, when the water got unbearably cold. With a little of Connie’s help, Steven hauled himself back to the wheelchair and made his way to what Spinel so heartily advocated for… the rides at the end of the boardwalk.  
“Alright,” began Pearl. “We meet back at the slingshot ride after an hour.”  
“But-” Amethyst waved her large amount of tickets in the air.  
“An hour. It’s getting late, and I’m sure Steven wants to go to bed this early because of his painkillers. And Amethyst, no shapeshifting.”  
Everyone knew that as long as Amethyst checked that Pearl wasn’t around, there wasn’t any way for Pearl to find out. They knew the carnies.  
“One more rule. Everyone has to stick together.”  
A collective groan. Even from Steven, who couldn’t even sit on the benches without help.  
“This way, everyone can watch everyone.” She didn’t quite know this is the reason for said collective groan.  
And with that, they were off. They completely ignored the little kids’ rides, and of course, Amethyst rushed towards the Tidal Wave, a sea-foam white coaster that flipped you every which way from hundreds of feet in the air before dipping you a few feet from the ground as if nothing had happened. “Just once,” said Pearl, “and if anyone gets hurt, we’re going straight home.”  
Five minutes later, she and Spinel had pointed out a drop tower ride that the both of them were tempted to once they realized how short the line was. And five minutes after that, they were on.  
Somehow, every light in the amusement park went right into Spinel’s eyes. “Doesn’t the prospect of such a high drop remind you of the landing process of a G-79 edition injector? I wanted to ride on one, but the problem was they were almost exclusive to the Beta Kindergarten, and…”  
Others looked at her with the “you-better-not-bump-into-me-after-this-ride-if-you-and-your-mom-don’t-want-to-be-broken-jewelry” look that Spinel’d picked up over those months. Pearl was about to agree wholeheartedly due to the knowledge of it and nearly everything else the Diamonds made that circulated in that spot in her forehead, but soon as she saw the looks, she was just as quiet.  
Until the drop, when they seemed to try and scream louder than the ride could roar.  
Meanwhile, the others, headed by Garnet-Greg had gone over to watch the drop tower from the safety of one of the many benches-were talking about how Steven could adapt. Amethyst offered mostly sympathy, saying how great it would be if Steven could shapeshift his legs like she could shapeshift “everythin’ about” herself. But Garnet was a little more practical, putting her and Connie’s heads together to make his wheelchair more streamlined so people didn’t have to bump into him. All they had to do was buy a little plastic and go to Greg’s garage for an hour or so…  
But eventually, after Amethyst had made her covert shapeshift and gotten Garnet to do a once-over on where Pearl was, the front of the line came. Steven apologized, made a small bubble around himself so he wouldn’t scrape against peoples’ skin with his wheelchair as he left. He found his dad by the bench.  
Greg wasn’t absorbed in any of it, even as Spinel and Pearl giggled almost in perfect harmony and giddily went to the back of the five-person line again. His eyes were a squirrel’s, wide. His hands shaking a little. “Steven. Don’t move.”  
Steven was tired, oh, so tired, but he managed to lift his head to see what was there; he was too tired to expect the worst. “Wha...who? Who’s there?”  
“A police officer.” Greg lowered his voice even more. “We’re in trouble. We’re in Maryland, Stevie.”  
Oh, shit.  
The police officer- a guard, to be accurate- was looking straight at them. Straight at the ride. Straight at them.  
But, as Steven and his dad were both transfixed at him, he did...nothing. Had the same look the tweens and teens on the ride looked at Spinel with, but did nothing. Even as Pearl and Spinel got off the ride again, Spinel looking a little green now, even as Greg put up a hand and they stood there in confusion, he did nothing.  
He looked straight at them.  
Greg was petrified. He knew how to protect his son. How to protect his lover, his Pearl, and what was the closest thing to a daughter he thought he’d ever get, from the point-blank gaze of the law, he didn’t know.  
He was stock-still.  
But the carny behind Pearl and Spinel must’ve said a gentle “move along,” prodded them a little. They moved to the back of the line again, and Greg shook, shook again, sat back down.  
The waves were crashing.  
And they continued to crash, the guard continued to be there, Greg and Steven continued to frantically divide their line of vision between him and the two Gems.  
Continued to do nothing.  
Spinel stumbled over to the dock after awhile, clutched her forehead with one hand and her stomach with the other, stooped over to where the ocean was underneath her and blew in her face. Pearl scrambled over to him, forgetting for a moment that she’d taken on a whole host of human traits due to her poison. But by the time that happened and Pearl was patting her shoulder, Amethyst , Connie, and Garnet were finished with the ride.  
Even Garnet was chuckling a few times when it didn’t make sense. Amethyst went over to the dock and kept up her, “Don’t worry, P! I didn’t ride any of it!” despite her questionable, swaying gait.  
But Connie?  
Steven was talking in a voice almost as low and velvet as his father’s, telling her everything that happened.  
“B-but the law!” Connie exclaimed, trying her hardest to keep it quiet. “The segregation law! Y’know…’separation of humans and those of extraordinary origin’? To keep humans safe or whatever bullshhh….crap they made up? Isn’t it still in place?”  
Steven shrugged; Connie did a quick Google. The most recent news article was the date it was put into place.  
“Connie.”  
She looked at him. He waited until he could see the worlds her eyes were reflecting before he spoke. Just as stock-still as his father. “I...I think I did something.”  
“Those speeches, they-”  
“I did something. Connie, we...we did something.”  
She quickly made her way to the bench, took Steven in an embrace, almost jerked his lower back from his wheelchair. “Oh, my God” was the only words she could make out before she made a noise in between laughing and crying. Thinking she was crying, Greg considered joining the embrace. Patted her shoulder instead.  
“Connie, we did something.”  
___  
“Randy, I just...wanna say thanks.”  
They’d made the van drive over to Rehoboth, although they had the freedom to use Coastal Highway like everyone else instead of going up the backway through the beach. Randy’d known they were going to tell him something different. That the time at the beach had carried its own weight like Bismuth once carried an entire spaceship out of harm’s way when it crash-landed and was about to teeter and plunge down a cliff a half a mile from her forge.  
And when Greg finally told him the news, before he thanked him, Randy just...nodded. And he hid his phone away. He’d forgotten what it was like to have the voices, the thoughts, the laughter, the songs and dances of people, anyone other than himself, people he’d never fully know no matter how close he’d been to them permeating through his house. And he missed it. He missed it more than he missed the way Greg first looked at him when they were both in their early twenties. Although he could never let Greg be in his life like that, there was still a part of him, human, universal, that missed it.  
He’d been messaging one of his female friends. Leslie.  
So Randy kept a stiff upper lip, like he always did. Went to his chiropracting job, went to the gym, went back home like he always did. Took the same zigzags through Coastal Highway to get to these places like he always did.  
And when the time came for them to finally have the hearts to finally start packing, he helped them out. He didn’t show anything other than resignation.  
Like he always did.  
They were tired of hurrying from place to place. The journey from Beach City to there had been harrowing, with a day’s work condensed down to an hour to avoid the frightful gaze of the law. But now, they dragged that day’s work into three days, filling in those other two days with trips to what Rehoboth had to offer in terms of tourist attractions and treating a concussion Greg developed during a fall on the floor while he and Pearl danced.  
All of them worked somewhat lazily to pack the bags in Greg’s van. Now that the other Gems weren’t as wiling to poof themselves, there wasn’t as much storage space. Even if it was a van, there were seven of them that needed to go back to Beach City, which meant a full van even without the bags. So they got creative, entrusting the smaller ones like Spinel and Amethyst to holding their own bags.  
And Garnet, the last of them, looked at Randy and Greg, face fallen slightly, before Spinel called her into the van.  
“Randy, I just...wanna say thanks.”  
Randy’s eyes widened a little. He didn’t feel any shock. He was just...how could he say this...flustered. But not the flustered brought on by any romantic tension. Just the thought of him being alone again, at least until his friend Leslie came over to see if she really only wanted to be friends with him.  
“Anytime” was all Randy could say.  
It was all he could think about as he walked back to the porch and Greg took his place in the passenger seat. He couldn't even think about the way Greg looked at him this time, even if he definitely noticed “Anytime”, “anytime”. Leslie could come over any time now. Things could be a little different anytime now. Maybe...maybe he could stop his running about as a chiropractor, even devote his time to helping out the storm-tossed Gems. He shook the thought away. It didn't make sense in the scope of finance, in the scope of his family. But it could happen. Anytime, anything could happen. He could have that loneliness carried by his two lone feet and their many lone footsteps taken away any time, any time was fine by him.  
The van took off down 45th Street, three minutes away from Coastal Highway.  
Any time.


	16. Season 7, Chapter 4- "Mnas"

March 4th, all of them- except for Connie, who told Steven she’d take care of checking her and Steven’s house and making sure no one had broken in- trudged, exhausted, inside the door to their Maryland home. Each item was left perfectly in its chaotic place; the TV was still on, the image hopelessly burned on it from the news broadcast announcing the segregation law. Distracted by it, Greg turned it off, saying to no one how he’d have to go to the electronics store once they were finished with unpacking. The food in the kitchen smelled like nothing short of impending death- after Spinel said this, Amethyst gave her a playful punch and made a joke about her being emo. But when Pearl told Amethyst to throw out the food, she didn’t believe that Spinel was exaggerating so much anymore.  
The rest of them doubled down to business, with Garnet picking up Steven in a slightly questionable fireman’s carry to bed.   
By the time the rest of them were in a position to go to bed with Steven, it was midnight. Luckily, though, the place was much cleaner than it was when it had been trashed during the protest- something all of them collectively hoped would blow over. Even if the law wasn’t being enforced anymore, it was there. Anyone who had a bone to pick with any of them could report them for violating it. And conflicts were springing up all over the country. Every day, Gems died, were beaten within an inch of their lives, went about their lives with a pervasive sense of fear.   
Every day.  
__  
Which is why the next day, as soon as the sleep shook off of Steven and the painkillers hadn’t encroached on him yet, he called the rest of them.   
“We should go out again.” Clear. Devoid of painkillers. His body was on fire, although gentle enough for him to last this call. “Display Gem culture.”  
“Steven,” began Greg. A little sigh, but not big enough to where it was accusatory to anyone but himself. “I didn’t tell you this, but while we were gone, we went to the school and tried that. They….kicked us out.”  
“Who’s ‘they’?”. The first question Steven asked himself when he started getting his young, chubby hands dirty in the underbelly of politics in first place.   
“Well...we did get permission from the principal. But thanks to a loophole- you’ve fixed so many of these, son, and I don’t want to cause you any more stress-”  
“Nono.” Steven was used to this. He let the blow pass through him, sail over his head like a chill caused by the waves, the tides. “Go on. Loopholes are what I’m here for.”   
“Well....long story short, kiddo, we got kicked out.”  
Steven couldn’t help but chuckle, followed by a sizeable wave of regret. “Sorry about that, Dad.” He didn’t know whether he was apologizing for the fact that they were kicked out or him laughing about it. “But like I said, loopholes are what I do. And considering it’s in public…”  
“...it’s a whole ‘nother story.”   
“You got it. Afterwards, wanna head on over to the convention center?”  
“‘Scuse me?” Steven could practically hear his father scratching his head.   
“The convention center. It’s way easier to arrange a gig there than it is a Gem culture exhibition.”  
__  
Bismuth and Peridot, actually, had been the ones to set the bulk of it up. Tri-folds, mostly, that helped to explain the most crucial bits of Gem culture, but thanks to Greg, he’d managed to get a record from a band in town with a Gem war song that made him feel like he was there.  
Of course, Spinel provided the bulk of the glitter.   
Everyone had their concerns. It was March 5th, which meant one thing: it was getting warmer. Even though most of the tourists swelled during the climax of the summertime, it was the winter, mild as it was compared to further up north in Delaware, keeping the tourists away. Soon as they saw the opportunity, they would come back. Which meant two things: more money for the town, and more visibility for everything going on there.   
They set up a spot in the corner after kicking off an ungodly amount of funnel cake that one of the kids there had undoubtedly spilled. As the waves roared in their ears and the voices they’d subconsciously had to do when this time of year came around, as the seagulls began to come to the foot of the boardwalk and feast off of the funnel cake they’d kicked off, it was Amethyst, ultimately, that stayed.  
“You sure you can do this alone?” asked Steven.   
Amethyst made that same “pfft” noise, made that same hand motion that Steven, as a child, called an “elephant pair” instead of the dismissive acts they were. “Yeah, I’m sure! Besides, I’m the one who’s best able to...y’know, translate it to the humans.”  
Garnet made the same “hmm-mm” noise she made often, parked herself so the guardrail to the boardwalk was at her back.   
Amethyst made a little “But-” noise, but, as everyone knew, once Garnet parked herself somewhere to act as a guard, she wasn’t going to move no matter who talked to her.   
Except for Steven, that is, who made his way along with the rest and waved goodbye to the two Gems. About five minutes after they made their way down the boardwalk, Pearl told Greg, “Spinel and I will be at the amusement park if you need us, alright?” She made a crooked dive-bomb in order to kiss his forehead while evading her nose.   
“Like a Mommy and Me date?” Spinel half-yelled, half-asked.  
Steven furrowed his brow, waved his hand down that meant both “keep it down” and “that’s not entirely socially acceptable here on Earth.” Spinel nodded sadly a little, waved her own goodbye with Pearl before they went to the amusement park. Everyone had their own questions about whether or not they’d be alright, but they all answered themselves with something along the lines of “the carnies know them.”  
What followed was some of the happiest times Steven could remember in the past month, without any hospital visits, without any tears or political rants. No violence. It wasn’t much; they were only going out to the store to get things they needed and maybe some faux jewelry and some pretty painting-pictures they could hang on the wall at home. But it was here that Steven felt most like...a god. Himself, yes, but more accurately a god. It wasn’t religion for him, although he got the feeling that somewhere, the Sun and Moon Goddesses were laughing at him with every klutzy move he made. There was nothing more godly, he thought, than him feeling not human, not Gem, not torn between the two. These moments came few and far between, but when they did, Steven finally knew what the word “clarity” meant. Something both he and Garnet had trouble finding. And when he came across clarity, he couldn’t help but tell Garnet this. He felt like he’d entered another Steven, the Steven without political imbroglios, the Steven to whom species didn’t matter to how the world looked at him. The Steven who was just now entering into manhood, and the Steven who was just now exploring it.   
And that was all.  
That was all, and as soon as he saw the trifolds hopelessly taken to the ground, soon as he saw Garnet and Amethyst in their fight stances, soon as he saw the humans recording them with their phones, telling everyone and their mother how violent these beings were, the clarity escaped like it always did.  
Like waves in the tide.  
__  
“God, I’ll never do it again.”  
Amethyst had been crying for the past fifteen minutes. Crying for her species, crying for the humans, crying for it all to stop. “I’ll never do it again. Next time...I wish I wasn’t a Gem.”  
She looked up at Steven, looked at him with the same wild desperation Steven tried, through his talks, to get rid of. He tried to get rid of it by stroking her hair, reaching as far as he could but only getting a little over half of it. He tried because anything else he wasn’t brought up for.  
“I wish I wasn’t a Gem, Steven.”  
___  
March the 6th, of course, they dealt with all the repercussions of it. They tried to flag each video that went online, but the only viable reason that they could was “violence”. As of now, there was nothing they could do- it was completely alright for someone to film something without the other understanding what they were being filmed for and what it would do.  
“Man, I wished they’d all die, or someone would kill ‘em,” said the comments. “If they’re walking around like that all the time, imagine what they’re like when they’re provoked.”   
“I wished I lived over on the East Coast so I could kill them myself.”  
“The President is an idiot for not deporting them all now.”  
And so on.  
Try as she might, Garnet couldn’t handle any more of it. She tried to tell Steven, Spinel, everyone, over and over again, that pulling up the videos would make it worse, but that only seemed to make them want to pull up the videos more and more. She couldn’t handle seeing herself being like that, giving her whole species a bad turn. So, the stress pounding on her as if Bismuth and Jasper had somehow fused and decided to crack her head open, she went out.   
And by “her”, she meant “us”. “Mnas” became “nas”.   
But Garnet had to deliberate first. Where could she go that was private? Even if it somehow was that Ruby turned into a human male, her going out in public, especially something this intimate, would be virtual suicide for her.   
So, without thinking to ask Greg, she put the van into overdrive and went down to the park.  
It was early evening when she decided to do it, which was the best time. Those who normally went to the park were at home or at churches constructing frilly-sounding slander for people like her...Sunday tended to do that. The sun was just beginning to smile down on them, and just as the shadows ran away, just as the sunlight jumped from the branch above her to her forehead, they unfused.  
And they just sat there.  
They didn’t do anything a child would squirm at, or even notice. It was Ruby who did it at first, who took her callus-filled right hand from countless times playing the ukelele and stretched out, tapped Sapphire’s shoulder before Sapphire gently grabbed it back with both hands, let her face fall into her hands. They didn’t talk, save for a, “we planned this for a long while, didn’t we”. They were exposed to each of the other’s emotions, each other’s innermost thoughts and desires, for every second they were Garnet. And it took awhile for the thoughts to accumulate in each others’ heads, to voice something original.  
So they just sat there.   
It was eight minutes later when he turned up. Wild-eyed, faded black t-shirt spread squarely across his front. He swore at them, called them out for the two women they both were. Ruby responded immediately by shouting at him, with Sapphire desperately gripping at her hand. She lost her balance as Ruby counteranted, banged the side of her head against the park bench.   
And she panicked.  
It wasn’t supposed to feel like anything except for cold metal. There wasn’t supposed to be something else, something that came from the inside. A whooshing, whooshing, thrumming, thrumming feeling. And as Ruby sat down, finished with a “some people”, she didn’t notice at first Sapphire fussing at the side of her forehead that gave her this feeling.   
But as soon as Ruby noticed, as soon as she suspected that something was somehow wrong with her Gem even, after a more-than-just-intimate look, it was completely intact, Garnet was back again.   
And as soon as she gripped the steering wheel to go back home, two words came from both Ruby and Sapphire.  
Some people.  
__  
March the 7th, visitors came to the home. Greg was working at the car wash; he couldn’t bear to rely on his son’s income. At first, when Spinel called Steven, Steven wondered who they could be, but abruptly found out who it was when she told him about how much that the ship they touched down in was going to ruin their backyard.   
“Steven zyca tutai?”   
That was the one question the head Gem asked. Spinel tried to fumble through the little modern Gem she knew in her head. If she tried to talk in the Old Gem dialect she was taught from creation, these Gems would make fun of her antiquity at best and take everything as an insult at worst. “Tutai” meant “here,” and of course she knew what her honorary brother’s name meant. They were asking if Steven was there. There were three Gems standing there, each holding a present of some sort, a Zircon with her Pearl and Ruby behind her. It comforted Spinel a little that even without the hierarchy Steven had worked so desperately to destroy, they were still practicing the servant-master households. As twisted as it was, it reminded her of home.   
But she didn’t know how to say anything but “wait here” in modern Gem before she ran up to Pearl, who was finishing organizing the books on the bookcase Steven’s grandfather had built for his little stone-massage shop on the boardwalk back in the 1920’s. She quickly welcomed them with a “Jen dobry”, had them sit down inside.   
Garnet was the one to close the door. “You think they know any English?”  
Pearl looked back at her. “I don’t think so. They just look like they’re visitors.”  
Amethyst was painfully aware of this as she tried to call Peridot or Bismuth. One of them could tell her where the Zircons could park their ship.  
Pearl bowed. It was subconscious, although she found a kindred spirit with the other Pearl. She turned then to the Zircon. “Je ty davacte zailepsze do nach ovoce, Zirkeron (I give you the finest food of the house, beloved Zircon).”  
The Zircon took the pears and physically turned up her nose at them before handing them to her Pearl. But nevertheless, she took them, and then bowed her own head a little. She went on her knees, took the gift in her hands and held it up to Pearl, something that almost had Pearl take a few steps back. By now, everyone had come over to the kitchen. The Zircon sighed, half-contented, half-regretful. “No ie iestem godny davaco do Steven to diament syntectysny. Zdielte to him, chockby ty tystem pokorny. (I am unworthy to give Steven this synthetic diamond. Ensure it gets to him, humble as you may be.)”  
Pearl said a few words of surprised obedience before taking the gift in her hands. It wasn’t much- the humans made synthetic diamonds out of cubic zirconia all the time. But the closer Pearl looked, the more she realized the Zircon had agglutinated crystallic material all over her arm- a sign it’d recently been cut.   
The small shot of horror slowly took over their faces. Pearl cleared her throat, bid all of them goodbye, had Spinel take the cubic zirconia to Steven’s room.   
This was the Homeworld they’d lived in and the one they’d left behind. The one to where Gems were willing to mutilate their bodies, their minds, for the sake of their Diamonds.  
This was the Homeworld that would never leave.  
Even if the three Diamonds left on there were to die.  
__  
March the tenth, on a Thursday, Greg came home, back hit by a jackhammer of eight hours standing and walking around cars that needed to be hosed down. In the middle of the day, he’d went up to scratch his head, and the world blurred, closed in on him as he pulled out a chunk from it. He’d excused himself to the bathroom, gotten himself a rusty pair of first aid scissors, and spent that time making sure his hair was even.  
Making sure no one would ask questions.  
He made sure to spray the hose close to him so he could have a better reason for the water dripping down his face.   
After he went home, there was a difference in the air. It wasn’t just that Steven was gone- he was still in his wheelchair, recovering from his injuries. But each tie that Pearl did something, anything, even take the laundry out of the dryer or borrowed his wrench to tighten one of the valves in the water heater, there was something...different, Greg realized. Not different as in scary. That came with sudden change. But it was a change he found he’d only noticed if he went back months.  
Which is why he made sure his hair looked completely, perfectly even that night.   
“Spinel! C’mere, bud.” He used “buddy” with Steven- it was a word Spinel wouldn’t ever be worthy of, try as he might.   
“Yeah?” She was bouncing now with her Minnie Mouse pajamas, identical to her blanket.   
“Can you get the CD from downstairs? The one with the picture of a guy with a white wig on it?”  
When she got it from a little cubby that was next to the water heater Pearl was so desperately trying to fix, she found it. Laughed. Garnet found her, laughed with her. It was time-worn, with the little insert being taken out and put back in so much there were white lightning-borders on the edges.   
She popped it into the CD player, and Greg, his heart already jumping from his chest, sat down in his chest. He kept his right arm in between the couch cushions to keep himself from getting a headache from the amount of Polo on his sleeve.  
And finally, at Greg’s worst, she came.  
The rest had gone to bed, but here she was. His Pearl. He felt his whole face turn into one of the cherry tomatoes his Gem-hating father used to grow with him in the backyard. Every memory came soaring out from him, making a lump in his throat.   
Greg was baffled as Pearl was the one to take his hand. “I know.” The look of love in her eyes, bright enough to cook the Atlantic herself…  
“I know, and I’m scared,” she continued.  
The music swelled. It was only now that Greg realized this was Mozart, the same music he’d attach to Rose’s belly to play to little Steven, or Stephanie early on in the pregnancy when they weren’t sure and when her body wasn’t shutting down. His Clarinet Concerto Adagio. They’d played the song over and over. And Rose had sometimes hummed it in her sleep-  
He found the tears completely involuntary, soaring. Pearl saw him. She was a mirror.   
“I...I feel like I’m walking on glass-”  
She was the one to take Greg into an embrace. And as the music swelled, Greg poured all of himself into her, felt his sleeve become soaked with tears as Pearl did the same. They stayed like that, unable to say anything about it, unable to look back, unable to look forward. Unable to look into each other for a moment.  
But after seven minutes of this, after the song ended, they simply could. They simply did.   
And after looking into each other enough, they wondered if they could become one.  
___  
Mnas. Gender-neutral. In the Gem language, a fusion of “I” and “we”.   
Greg and Pearl.  
Mother of Pearl.  
Pearl and Greg.  
Mother of Pearl.  
Mother of Pearl never thought mnas could’ve done it. The Pearl part and Greg part were both in turmoil, as it always was during a fusion. The Pearl part of mnas, up until seeing Greg and Steven, didn’t think a Gem could do it with a human. But, strange as she found it, any potential thoughts of Greg and Rose trying to fuse for the first time, Rose laughing, gripping his leather jacket, telling him how it was impossible for a human to fuse with a Gem, dissipated. Gone. All the things they were carrying, all the shit that was crushing on their necks, was a part of each other now. The load was lessened.  
Almost gone.  
Mother of Pearl looked at mnasself. Almost like the original Pearl, but with brown hair, Jasper-like, that almost reached the floor. Mnasself realized they were naked, covered mnasself and put mnas clothes back on.   
But not before Spinel came into the picture. Smiling. A shark, but only a tiger one. Didn’t eat anything except plants, and wasn’t any bigger than your forearm.   
And not before Spinel showed mnas a letter. Addressed to her.  
“Your secret admirer” in chunky, smeared green ink.


	17. Season 7, Chapter 5: Angielsky

One more time.  
Steven, again, had pushed this, driven it to the point of even his father thinking he was beating a dead horse, something he would never say about his son unless it was causing this much suffering. None of them knew whether it was done out of boredom or whether it was done on the basis of genuinely trying to improve the Gems' livelihoods.  
One more time.   
They’d decided to do it on March the 14th, the day the Homeworld Gems celebrated their victory in the Battle of the Earth-Dwelling Stones, one of the most influential battles of the entire Gem war. In this battle, the Homeworld Gems, to the Crystal Gems surprise, had created a Jasper, who’d managed to shatter eighty Crystal Gems. While the Homeworld Gems celebrated a little more viciously, the Crystal Gems saw it as a day of peace and commemorating Gem achievements, which Steven meant to take full advantage of. Most of the celebration was headed by Gems who lived near the Grand Canyon area out west, but Little Homeworld was always a hub for things like this.   
Steven tried to get one of the human journalists over, but to no avail. So he spread through word of mouth, which wouldn't work in a place like Charm City or the Capitol. But, as Greg often said, “like twelve people” lived in Beach City, and so, one by one, suburban families of all schools of thought heard of it, for better or for worse.  
But there was no looking back now. All of them tried desperately to enjoy themselves as they soldiered on to the center of Little Homeworld. Pearl and Greg were busy discussing Spinel’s secret admirer and who he or she could possibly be. So the rest were left to officially prepare.   
It was huge. Even with the segregation law not enforced, it was still overcrowded with Gems. Bismuth, had she been human, would’ve gone to the point of no return as far as exhaustion went when building new buildings. And this was even without the humans, who even now were starting to show up in either families or groups of seven or eight. Some Gems left and went to enjoy themselves by the shoreline; the cleverer ones went to the outskirts, far from anyone, human or Gem.  
And it was at about 2 PM that the first group walked over, wide-eyed, almost skeletal in terms of slimness.   
“Sup?” Amethyst was the only one out of all of them who didn’t look at humans with even a hint of suspicion. “Today’s what we, uh, aliens…”  
Connie gave her a little punch, not painful enough for her to feel like rubbing it.  
“We Gems have a pretty special day today. And-”  
They picked up a few of the pamphlets they’d made. Garnet cringed, and both Steven and Spinel looked at each other with a lightning-bolt of fear. The dread built up in Garnet. This was not the time for them to read those. She’d wrote it in a fit of pride, telling how great the Gems were and their opinions on humans. They were supposed to listen, then read. Why did humans never listen?   
One of the head humans, with a shirt saying “Earth is Our Home” with the “Our” in too-bold red letters, shook her fist for just an instant before banging it on the table. “God, you stupid-as pieces of shit aren’t gonna stop in making sure we’re wiped out, arnch’ta?”  
“What?” Amethyst tried to say. “No, we-”  
Garnet put a hand on one of her gauntlets, which caused the group of seven or eight humans, quickly turning into twenty, to raise a collective yell.  
“No,” whispered Connie, with Spinel’s first move to hide behind the table. “Not...yet.”  
The woman with the shirt nodded towards a man with a greying beard, who got out his phone. Possibility after possibility came to each of the Gems’ minds, with Steven having half a mind to call over Pearl and Greg, the closest to his father and mother.  
“It says right here in this pamphlet…” she whacked it enough for it to be permanently bent… “how many battles the Gems won over the humans. Do you know how much of our ancestors died in those battles?! The innocent people… innocent…” Tears came, but each of them knew they were out of anger.  
“It’s people like you that make sure our race dies out.”  
Each of them Gems flew to an explanation, each to something different. Garnet was the exception, staying silent and trying to find a point in the Atlantic to stare at, watching as it bobbed up and down as the wave hurried along to the shore. Connie tried a, “please, believe Steven and I, we’re humans”. Amethyst tried out the “but there’s so much more to our culture” approach, which wasn’t exactly handled the most competently with her. And Steven was a fire, using everything from his childhood to support how blatantly wrong the humans were, even almost jumping out of his wheelchair.   
That was when they heard the first sickening sound of concrete falling.  
For once, the two species were together. They both looked towards the source of the sound.   
But it was in the expressions that the two couldn’t be more different, Steven and Connie as exceptions. The humans looked at them and displayed a triumphant smile, while for everyone except Garnet, it was their first instinct to run, run, run. And as they ran, they heard another noise. Another. And then the sound of broken glass.  
And then they saw Greg and Pearl, who were just now finishing their talk about Spinel’s sudden news. But even more suddenly, rocks flew from the inside out, and Greg tackled Pearl while the rocks whizzed out over the boardwalk to the sand below. As both man and woman let out a scream, Steven tried to fight off someone who’d come and tried to take him out of his wheelchair. Steven watched as windows were broken, doors ripped off their hinges. From the inside out, the humans were having the town explode. Bare hands, sticks, stones, and even a firearm or two… there were at least three hundred of them who came, all shapes and sizes.  
Broken glass whipped into Steven’s face, and a quarter-second later his sleeve. The person who’d tried to take him out went on the ground, and Steven took the wheels and sped himself off to where Greg and Pearl were.  
“Thank God.” Greg looked left, then right. Most of the chaos was happening near the center of Homeworld, but there were still startlingly close sounds of breaking glass or a rumble in the ground as a shop collapsed. The Gems tried as they might, but with every human they hurt, it was a piece of propaganda for them to use. Let alone trying to kill one of them…  
“You okay?” Pearl this time. Sweat beaded down her forehead even after Steven nodded. “Spinel, where is she?!”  
“I dunno, but-” he tried to wheel himself forward, but did so so quickly he almost fell, head sliding down to the pad he’d been sitting on up until now.   
Just as quickly, Greg sat him up on his seat before patting his shoulder. “It’s alright, buddy, you did a real good job already. Just...just follow us, alright?” And just like that, Greg and Pearl were running into the concrete fog, with Steven staggering behind him.   
Spinel was in a world of danger. Her world spun, and no amount of stretching could keep her from the wrath of a teenage girl, who was punching her in the face so quickly Spinel didn’t even have a chance to breathe. Slowly, Spinel’s face swelled; teeth were knocked out. Tears slipped out of her eyes, taking the opportunity before they themselves began to swell. And as Pearl got out her staff and Greg his ukulele, there was a blur of black and brown, and in an instant, the teenage girl was off of her. Tackled.   
Spinel struggled to sit up, but once she looked to the left, she was dumbfounded.   
It was OJ, her secret admirer, the apple of her eye, at least for now. She’d met him that December, but both decided to keep it quiet from their parents. He was all of 14 years old. Chubby. Tan-skinned. He was a Native American; with him and his brother coming down from New-York. Eyes browner than his hair, hair browner than the chocolate ice cream Spinel so loved to eat. And so, so short. Faux fur hoodie from when he’d lived further north, the seventy degree weather seeming not to have an effect on him. But he treated her so well, and now...oh, God, how she loved…  
“OJ-” she tried to say, but her lip was swelling like she’d been stung by a bee, or least from what she heard from the humans. She thanked the goddesses she’d been taught from her creation that her hearing was still intact and she could hear the sound of the buildings being ruined around her.   
But before she could do any of that, Connie, from out of nowhere, took her by the shoulders and dragged her back to a spot in the boardwalk near Greg and Pearl were talking. Spinel didn’t know- her vision was beginning not to work diddly-squat- but Connie was running to one of the shops and scrambling to gather some ice before stuffing it all over Spinel’s face. “Jesus,” Connie said, all quiet. “She was really crazy, wasn’t she?”   
Spinel nodded, let her chin quiver before she laid herself lay down. Let the ice over her face melt.   
And after the third round, after wondering where OJ was, she let herself fall asleep.   
___  
Little Homeworld was ruined.  
It wasn’t completely destroyed… that was worse than ruined. No one had died on the human side, but they found some gem shards in an alleyway; they weren’t sure whether someone had just dropped their jewelry or if a Gem’d had a gunshot wound and staggered off there to die quietly like a cow under a sedative, out of the way of the violence. “Ruined” meant that they could eventually repair it, but until then, a few of the unluckier Gems would have to call the streets home because their homes were simply too unsafe, too debris-ridden to live in, least till they repaired it.   
They all made their way home, OJ running away from the girl before he could sustain too many punches.  
And they all cried.   
Spinel, of course, was hysterical, or at least as hysterical as she could be with her eyes being swollen. Amethyst let herself lay on the couch and let the tears come when they would. Garnet thanked whatever goddesses she could think of that she wore a visor.  
They got a call from Bismuth. She'd get plans for rebuilding underway, like everyone expected she would. But everyone could hear how the words struggled to get out, as she tried to bite her lip before she took her hammer in her hand and hung up.  
It was ruined.   
_  
Bismuth, after 5 hours of nonstop repair, feeling the weariness in her bones despite not having any to begin with, took the long way home. Mostly to avoid the humans, but deep down she loved the beach, through and through. The fact that all of this sullied her vision for it like a piece of garbage lead her to kick one of the pebbles beside her. She watched it plop; it sounded enough like the gulp in her throat to scare her just the slightest.   
An hour later, she entered the back door of her place, stepped on the relatively few shards of glass on the floor. She smiled a little. Least her job as a builder also lended her a few architect skills as well. Probably dozens more projectiles had landed on her house than it gave away. She checked her anvil, checked the swords waiting for the next major Gem festival. She did a very, very long check to make sure nothing around the hearth was damaged before she lit it and sat down in the chair she'd gotten as a present from Peridot.   
A piece of pink string fell off. She smiled. She was tempted to pull it, but doing so would eventually dismantle the whole upholstery .  
And it was Peridot she first thought to tell the decision that'd been simmering in her head through all of those five hours.  
She skipped the "Hey, Peridot."   
"Look, I got an idea." She bit her lip, waiting for Peridot to send a text back, tightened the leather straps on her smithing uniform. Knowing now, though, she'd leave her on read, a thought Bismuth tossed off like the fire to its embers.  
"tell me".  
"The police won't do shit. You know that, right?"  
"heh. Yeah"  
"So...what if I could, y'know, step in? Take one of their places? I know I won't get everyone, but the Gems need all the protection they can get right now."  
"what"  
"Yeah."  
Bismuth took the time to take out the shards to the window, grind them into shards for something useful as she let it sink into Peridot. Nothing. She was a little worried, but nothing too serious. Time for her to gather some sand from out back to make more glass for the window before some lingering humans started yelling at her.   
Her phone was always covered with grime, even if she cleaned it every morning. But she still saw Peridot's reply.  
"c'mon over. let's talk. I don't want you in any danger."  
__  
By the time Peridot and Bismuth were finished talking, it ewas the next day. March 15th. Steven couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Yesterday was Pi day.   
So, despite everything, he woke up early to bake Connie her favorite- pumpkin, with a little tumeric in it for a little more interesting color. By the time he did this, he passed out napping on the kitchen counter, and he was woken up by Connie half-stroking, half-noogieing his giant mop of a hairstyle.   
The rest of the day, though, was more intense. Whatever work Bismuth had done, whatever even she was capable of doing, it was nothing compared to what everyone else collectively had to do. So the humans of the group who weren’t Steven and Connie all scrambled to the hardware stores whenever they had fre etime, grabbed supplies off of shelves, ran back to Homeworld before any of the other humans suspected what was going on. Some of the Gems forgot that humans were exhausted after a little while, and one of the newcomers even checked to see if a woman’s gem had poofed when she passed out from the heat. From then on, in order to save on water, the instruction was handed out that if anyone felt hot, they should go to the ocean straightaway, get a whiff of the breeze, come back up and keep working.   
They did what they could. Painting, cementing some of the bricks, cleanup. Lots and lots and lots of cleanup. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of it. They tried to call Jasper over so they could go into thousands and thousands of it, but nobody’d like the idea of being thought of as a dumpster, especially in an area the VA had denied her access to for housing assistance. They kept every bit as scraps so they could use them later, but mostly in order to avoid having to take an umpteen amount of trips to the dump in the gaze of all the humans and town. They’d finished about seventy percent of what they could do by the end of the day. Most weren’t used to the working conditions. But the average worked about sixteen hours, combined with their regular workday. Even Greg was exhausted early on, but both Steven and Spinel just decided to give him a Gatorade and a kiss on the cheek each before leaving him alone.   
Bismuth was just as exhausted. Seen by the Gems or no, she’d been keeping a lookout for any humans that wanted to cause more damage. And when they did, she either closer, got out her hammer, asked them what they were doing, warn them to go back if she thought they had a harmful intent, and tackled them. Each were steps; if they didn’t respond with one, they’d respond with the one higher up.   
And by the times she came back, hammer still out, there was a little more light to her eyes, as much as what could come back, when she realized how much LIttle Homeworld- home- had been repaired.   
It was ruined.   
But not destroyed.   
___  
March 16th, everyone was exhausted; they did little more than a little cleanup work. But the 17th was a different story.  
That morning, Steven answered a knock at his door, calling Connie over when realizing it was Amethyst, tugging along a human woman beside her. The woman met Steven's eyes, kept her head low just a little before Amethyst quickly introduced her as someone she'd been taking on a few dates over these past few days. Steven quickly motioned for her to come inside, wobbling a little on his wheelchair before they all gathered in the kitchen. Amethyst, for a bit, could've been comparable to Spinel in terms of how bouncy she was.   
"Who's this?" asked Connie as Steven started making them all his signature coffee. "A friend? More?"  
Amethyst laughed, a sifter full of gold and gemstones, although she couldn't help from blushing. "Nah. Just a friend." She took a pause, then fiddled around with her thoughts, as if something were hooked on the tip of her tongue. "Hey, I'm gonna… let you introduce yourself from here."  
The woman took a sip of coffee, eyes still wide in that tentative way. She couldn't have been older than 20. "Genevieve."  
So a half an hour later, Amethyst and Genevieve went to the other side of the boardwalk to take a peek at all the ridiculous stands that were being set up, including one halfway derogatory-but-still-tongue-in-cheek one selling dolls that were supposed to be Gems. Or at least they were supposed to go to the other side of the boardwalk.   
There was another woman who was circling them. Trying to look like she wasn't keeping her eye on them as much as she was. The second time she circled, Amethyst and Genevieve started to pay attention.   
But the third time, she must've brought everyone in her friendship group and her mother, and they chewed out the two of them. After an hour of trying reason and hearing threats, Amethyst had to say goodbye to Genevieve as she dropped off into one of the smaller streets weaving into the boardwalk from the right in order to get home.   
Amethyst bit her lip. Once the crowd went away, she crossed her arms, rubbed her hands up and down the upper parts of them as if they were cold. Steven took the time to ask her what was wrong.   
Both of them were at the same height. But somehow, it seemed that Amethyst was much shorter, or on her knees or sitting down. Somehow, the breezes grew silent.   
"Seven friendships like this" was all she could reply with. "Seven friendships."  
She sighed. "'M tired."  
__  
Soon as that was happening, there was another introduction at Greg's beach house. One that happened before work, as Greg was still a little bleary-eyed from just havng woken up forty-five minutes ago. One that was a little more home-invasive.   
He couldn’t have been older than fourteen, although by the looks of him, he may not have even started middle school yet. He couldn't have been any taller than Amethyst. From a very, very far distance- any closer and people could see the tan of his skin that matched a lot of the dark beige-brown on the boardwalk cornerstores- he looked like an incredibly short-haired version of her. And he couldn't have been any less clumsy than Spinel when she'd first ran up to the transmission after spending six thousand years standing alone.   
But Spinel wasn't alone now. She was painfully aware of that as the ice pack that flopped on top of her eye almost gave her another bruise.   
And a jolt of fear made her flop like one of the marlins she'd once seen a fisherwoman catch.   
"Who the fuck’s behind me?!!"  
And OJ stood. He spluttered.   
Man, my girl learns quick.   
He laughed with the ferocity of an old car engine, not noticing Pearl sprinting up, staff in hand, behind him. But when he heard the telltale whoosh, he yelped, spluttered out as many apologies as he could. Not stopping till the staff went by Pearl’s side and not over her head.   
“I just….I just wanted to help Spinel!” was all he repeated after the apologies, when it was Greg’s turn to rush up to what was making all the noise. “I just wanted to help Spinel.”  
“And,” added Garnet, who was letting herself do a morning stretch after having watched Steven and Greg do it so many times, “we did leave the door unlocked.”  
Greg rubbed his neck. He’d been the one to go to the storage room last night.   
“Still…” Greg started, before Garnet could. “At least knock first, alright? You scared all of us half to death.” By “all of us”, he meant “Pearl.” “Anyways, how you doing, Spinny?”  
“Eh...okay. Still can’t open my eyes, but it doesn’t mean they’re gonna jump out of my head any more.”  
“That’s definitely better, then.”  
“I’m sorry,” began Pearl, gripping the staff just a little harder in her hand again. “But who’s this person?”  
“My name’s OJ,” said the boy, who just now felt the sweat under his grayish-brownish, fake fur coat and decided to unzip it. “I’m goin’ to the seventh grade. And I’m Spinel’s boyfriend. At least I think? ‘Cause we’ve been pen pals to each other starting Christmas and gone on dates and held hands and stuff.” Spinel pulled the ice pack to her face in a poor attempt to keep it from reddening as she stretched her hand all the way over to where he was on the other side of the living room and punched him in the arm. “Agh-”  
“Really?” Pearl let the staff twirl, stopped only after a glare from Greg. “I’ve never seen you around here before. And this place isn’t exactly Charm City.”  
“We moved from New York, ‘cause we were adopted by some woman there before she decided to move down to Maryland to the beach. Said she wanted people around her who thought more like her, or somethin’ like that. My brother and I are Seneca.”  
“Wha-”  
“Indian. Not from India like Connie. Native American.”  
Greg felt a wave of guilt, but let it shoot by like a blast from a piezoelectric lasgun that the Gems enjoyed using even after the war.   
“Anyway, can I stay here until school starts? Please? Uh…’please’ in Gem?” He looked at Garnet for a split second before she smirked and said a quick, “Je m’ovio po angylski (I speak English)” that made his eyes grow bigger than the Moon Lapis loved.   
“I...I guess so” was what Greg said before getting his coat. “I have to go to the car wash and set some equipment up,, but as far as I know, the public school system doesn’t get going until 8.”  
Now OJ was over the moon as he made a quick landing, tapping at Spinel’s feet before she thought to move them so he could sit down. She almost took off her ice pack from her cheeks, but they were about as red as the bun she wore when she was still infantile, and she pushed it back on.  
“And that’s Garnet. She speaks better English than I do.”   
__


	18. Season 7, Chapter 6, Part 1: Sile

Spinel woke up that morning just at twilight, the sun still in her eyes. It took her a good thirty seconds of sitting on that couch, wondering, always in wonder about the human world, before she realized that the sun was in her eyes. She could see.   
She wondered if she could call OJ. She didn’t hear anybody else awake that needed sleep. So rather than ask Garnet, or Pearl who liked to sit at the back porch and look a little at the ocean while her pearl in her forehead hummed with thought, she staggered her way to the clock and found that the center of her vision was completely clear. It took a little less than thirty seconds of looking at the clock this time, but she used all of the practice telling time over those past months to tell that it was either 5:30 or 6:25- either way, early in the morning.   
Walking to the couch was, thankfully, a cakewalk this time, and so was saying good morning to Garnet and grabbing another ice pack at Pearl’s orders.   
But using a phone was much more nuanced. She had to look away for more than a minute before the indiscernible blur became the icons she was used to. She smirked. Oh, the amount of time she’d hidden away OJ’s number from the rest of them…  
Her fingers stumbled around the touchpad. “Hey, boo.” She didn’t know whether she was joking in a bit of an annoying way or if she actually meant it somewhat. “You up?” Completely garnered from human behavior.   
Five minutes passed by. Six. Then ten, before the worry planted itself in her. She jerked as the plant grew, twisting her insides all at once. And with each branch, a thought. A thought she knew was irrational, knew she couldn’t bring to life in a text. But a thought nonetheless, and a thought that brought even her to a painful limit on the stretching devices she’d seen in movies that took place a long time ago. He doesn’t really love me, does he? I knew it. I knew this was all a fluke. Why would he do this to me? Why would he abandon me like this? Serves him right, I’ll abandon him right back!   
With that, she gave the phone a toss. But a little one, only to the couch cushions. It bounced off harmlessly to the floor.   
“You okay?” Amethyst was walking down the stairs now, yawning.   
“Yeah, I just dropped it.” She sat there for a while, feeling anger. Everything. Tears dripped.  
She put the ice pack on.  
An hour passed by, two. Amethyst had to call her twice for breakfast, and her ice pack had melted, but she let herself eat some of the Eggos Amethyst was a dab hand at making without worrying at all about OJ. She brushed her teeth, said good morning to Steven, without worrying more than a little about OJ. And it wasn’t until Greg eventually let his arms, legs, back creak out of bed, and until he told Spinel about the play featuring OJ they were going to see later that day, that the worrying made her body temperature go up and she skid to her phone.   
So she was getting better.  
Wasn’t she?  
She noticed the phone on the ground. Hesitated for a few seconds, let a tsunami pass over her like Lapis let it pass over her shoulders before picking it up.  
“Yeah! You wanna come over early so you can help me set up and get in my costume?”  
__  
It was all Greg could do to get his time-and-time-again-worn coat so he could say goodbye to Spinel, to Pearl, to everyone else, and to step out of the door.   
Every second afterward, he was a god.  
Not since Steven had first been in the hospital had he even considered doing another gig. But the worry grew and grew every day, slowly, like a guitar thread unraveling. Apparent over months, or maybe weeks if it was bad enough or the guitarist was astute enough, but never day by day. He fumbled the six-string, not played it. And even if it weren’t for his arthritis or him dreading if his hair would ever grow back if he cut it that short, he’d still let the worry grow. He wasn’t content with practice. Practice was nothing. He was a schoolboy.  
He needed to play. Really play. In front of a group of actual people, people who could do anything from throwing anything they had in their hands at him to giving him a standing ovation. He needed to be his son. He needed to become a god.   
He needed to be as superhuman as his son was.   
He started the car.  
He’d be lying to himself if he said he didn’t look up to his son just as much as he looked up to him.   
___  
It was just after Spinel had finished a Maryland-style hoagie, Old Bay practically poured on it, when they left for the play.   
With a quick text to OJ that she’d be on her way and a quick putting on of some black buckled shoes by Pearl for the occasion, Spinel and Pearl were walking toward the lightpad together. The sun from the panoramic windows made both their eyes tighten. Pearl found herself interested enough in Spinel telling her what the play was about that by the time they were finished, they saw him.   
They’d stepped off the lightpad.  
They’d walked halfway from the parking lot to the building.  
It was Spinel who saw the man’s face, his ferocity, a soda-can crushed and then kicked around the car. His hands were cherry-tomato red.   
But it was Pearl who saw the pistol.  
“Shit!”   
Pearl jumped ahead of Spinel when the firing started. Spinel jerked a little before jumping out of the way, one hand ending up on the window behind her. Pearl’s staff went unsheathed, and she was a tornado, managing through thousands of years of practice to hit away most of the bullets he fired next until slowly, slowly all the ammo was gone.  
Pearl still swung her staff through the air, still somewhat relishing the whooshing, breeze-like sound it made. “What were you thinking?!”   
“Yeah, you-” Spinel hesitated. “You better get yourself back to where you came from...or else!”  
At first, he thought Spinel’s voice was his own 11-year-old daughter’s; he also saw her wincing on occasion. Dread jumped on him, pinned him down, nearly killed him. If only it did. If only it did...  
“Oh, God. Oh, God, Oh, God, I- I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...I didn’t know she was a-”  
Pearl’s face didn’t shift except for motherly anger. “You’d better be sorry. You could’ve hit somebody! Somebody could’ve been walking out that door!”  
“I’m so sorry. Please...please...I’ll do anything for you, I’m so sorry...I…”  
“You can let us go.”  
George- the gunman- noticed his hands were shaking, even though the vibration in his gun had stopped minutes ago.  
“Come on, Spinel, let’s go home.”  
She grabbed Spinel’s hand. They began walking. Pearl didn't know any of the signs. Didn't know that Spinel's hand pressed up, an open fist clenched against her dress, wasn't normal. Didn't realize that because she was pressing on her stomach, she should've done something much sooner. Didn't realize exactly what George had done. Pearl only took a breath, took Spinel by her free hand, and walked away from the small crowd.  
"Pearl.”  
She caught her red shoe against, and stumbled over, nothing.  
“Pearl, it hurts."  
"Yes, Spinel, we need to get home now, and I…"  
"Pearl."  
This time, she stopped. By now, George was still close enough to see the commotion and to see the world that was about to topple on him, but too far to hear what they were saying, to hear the sound and fury of that world toppling on him.  
"Pearl, something...bad's happening to me."   
It was only when Spinel took off her hand from her stomach and wondered why it looked like the red pen in the car had exploded on it, poured its entire self into it that Pearl's senses, universal, kicked in.   
She took a half-gasp, and her chin quivered. "Pearl, it hurts so bad…”   
And it was only when Spinel started to topple over that the senses, both on George's and Pearl's part, turned into an animal's.  
"Spinel?! Hold on, honey, I've got you, I've got you…"  
By the time Pearl eased Spinel on her back, Spinel’s eyes whipped by the sun, the pen had already seemed to make its way onto the sidewalk. She painfully shuffled into the fetal position and clutched her stomach with both hands; George felt like he was supposed to clutch his head. The pen was spreading to the curb faster than even George expected, much too fast, and the glaze already started to flit across Spinel’s eyes. Tears poured down because something sinister, something unknown, something sinister because it was unknown was coming down on her. The tears turned into crying, a child’s cry.   
George’s heart ripped its way down into the parking lot.  
It sounded like his own daughter, or the just-past-elementary-schooler he’d witnessed fall from her bike about three weeks ago. Except the girl on the bike was alright after a few minutes and a few words of encouragement by her older brother.   
But Spinel cried out for Pearl. Everything in Pearl was tossed to the ceiling, every fiber, every atom slammed down, tossed, slammed again. She said the only thing she could to keep herself from screaming, into the crowd.  
“What’s happening?!”  
There was only silence from the crowd, or the occasional stepping back from one or two of them in order to avoid the pen. It was already spreading there. Already spreading there. Already.  
“Please!”  
Already. Spinel looked in the mirror she'd made and wondered why she was already so pale.  
“Please…”  
Already cracking.  
Her gem was cracking. The tears flung to the edges of Pearl’s eyes; her hands flew over her mouth as she knelt down next to her. The world went still. She could feel the waves’ tides over the course of a day like a fever or a pulse, shifting up, plummeting down, all at once. “No, please, God, no, not...Spinel, you’re gonna be alright, I need to...I need to…”  
Pearl’s limbs moved before her mind did. It was what instinct was, she supposed. Or it could've been that if her mind moved beyond that, her Gem would've shattered right along with Spinel's. Before long, she was holding her, one hand over Spinel’s clutching hands, the other under her head. Too quickly, Pearl was bathed in an ocean. She didn’t feel it.   
“Just stay still, okay? I know it hurts. Shhh, it’s okay, I know it hurts, I know it hurts, it’s okay, shhhh..”  
And Spinel tried to be still, found it took a trace, a glass-sliver, off the pain.   
She could talk.  
“Pearl, I’m sorry…tell, tell Steven that….”   
“For- for what? You don’t ha-” Pearl covered her mouth, made a little gulping noise before the next wave of tears came, did everything she could to choke the tears back enough to keep Spinel’s from getting worse.  
“For the injector, an’ for the...rejuvenator, an’ for-”  
Spinel’s gem cracked, larger than before. Spinel whimpered; her hands tightened on her stomach. Pearl’s hand tightened in sync.   
“Shhhhh....I’ll tell him, okay? Shhhh...you’re alright. You’re gonna be alright, you know that, right?”  
The glaze was taking over Spinel’s eyes; she began panting a little.  
“Spinel?...I love you, I….” Something splintered inside Pearl; she let a few more throatfuls of tears come. “I love you, okay? I love you so much…”  
Sounds came that Pearl would've given anything to forget someday. Cracking from Spinel’s gem. Gasping. Then panting. Just panting. The same panting as before. Panting that wouldn’t stop. Pearl’s shushing echoed with the waves, created a song every soul in the crowd could hear.  
A song that was almost too loud for what she’d hear next.  
“Don’t go.”  
The tiniest gasp on Pearl’s part as she stopped the song. Unbinding instincts she never knew she had, she squeezed Spinel's hands, didn't stop until she saw a little light come back to her eyes.   
“I won’t. Not ever.”  
There was a pause in the song, the waves the only voice. Spinel gasped a little. A peaceful sort of smile Pearl didn’t know Spinel could make spread across her face and, after a few moments, fell with her hands.  
Her eyes taken over by the glaze.  
That was it.  
That was it, and Pearl was left there, left to call her name and to scream it in a way that made George’s heart lurch and to pull her closer and to feel where the gem used to be intact, unshattered, and to brush the pigtails with her free hand, slowly, slowly, her own chest and breath in tatters. For half a minute, Pearl sat there, her dress sticking to her more, and brushed them. Never a day in her life had she brushed them except for Spinel’s honorary birthday, and the wind created its own song on her cheeks, in her ears.  
And everything George ever knew fell apart.


	19. Season 7, Chapter 6, Part 2: Sile (Continued)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not an April Fool's Day prank!  


George's first thought wasn’t prison. No, no, it would never be prison, let alone a fine enough to financially set him back for a year at least, when it came to killing one of their own. It would be a written warning, at most, even if something like this was dead certain to be unprecedented. Unlike what George had always experienced, what anyone in the crowd had always experienced, the police weren’t the one to make the call to the family. God, how was he so stupid? Spinel had a family. A family, just like him…  
The hatred recoiled. That’s what happened when someone identified it, and even more so when something this pernicious happened that was its fault, even partially. But unless it was chained, it always came back.  
It always did.  
He could notice Pearl shaking even from where he was standing, far enough to where a car horn’s honk sounded different depending on where you stood.  
“Steven, you know where the theater is, right?”  
“What theater?”  
Dead air. Except for too-fast breathing from Pearl.  
“Pearl, what theater?”  
“Just please, please come to the theater, please come, I need you and your dad now, please…”  
“Pearl, I don’t know where the theater is. We’re gonna need some directions, you...you okay?! You’re breathing really hard-”  
Pearl was the one to hear nothing this time. Her breathing only got faster.  
“Pearl. It’s me, Greg. What’s going on? Steven said y-”  
“Just come to the theater…”  
“Oh, God, are you alright?! I know where this is. I’m coming. Stay right there, okay? Don’t move.”  
He hung up.  
Steven thought it was strange how he didn’t seem to hear the booing and jeering of the crowd as they went out to the van, although he definitely saw it happen.  
All he heard was an equally strange whooshing noise in his ears.  
____________________  
After Pearl laid Spinel back down, she placed her head gently, ever so gently, on Spinel’s stomach. Her ear was bathed; she would’ve been thought to be dead herself, the way she was staring, if it wasn’t for her hands making half-hearted grabs at Spinel’s. She stayed there for minutes, hours, a year, six thousand of them, waiting for Greg and Steven to come tire-screeching back from the Annapolis area.  
She was alone.  
Even after the theater was fully evacuated, even after the janitor started prodding at her to move so he could begin his cleaning, she stood still enough for a wave to have dragged her out into the Atlantic would she have been lying at the shoreline. Spinel underneath her slept so deeply she didn’t stir even when a leak in the wooden awning from a few days of built up rainfall that previous week dripped on her hip. And when the van finally did come, so did the spasming, so did the almost metallic heaving that was now her crying. George found he couldn’t help but make a phone call to his wife. Not knowing what to say. Not knowing if he’d say anything.  
Greg made sure Spinel's eyes were closed and resting, his fingers shaking.  
Spinel lay, sleeping. Tears trailed down her cheeks, pain-etched.  
And only Greg spoke. "Baby, come back…"  
And Steven watched from the van. Watched his slipped-away almost-sister be held by people other than him. A terrible feeling gripped him, almost by his own stomach, and he was shaken back and forth, uncontrollably, a limpet pulled and pushed by the never ending waves, tears flying with no origin. Memories flowed from every origin, none of them lived by Steven. For a moment, he became a she. What had she done? Would she ever deserve a friend? Did she deserve anything good from anyone at all? Steven took the keys, unlocked the car, fumbled his way to the backseat, was isolated now. Steven didn't deserve to see their faces. But it was just a figment.  
A figment of Steven's own mother.  
Eventually, though, Steven had to come to at some point, tiptoe to the edge of the hood at some point, albeit while shaking. Sure, he was asked question after question by officer after officer. And sure, Connie, Garnet, Amethyst, even Lars, Sadie, Shep eventually came. But it didn't matter. Now Greg was holding Spinel like he'd held Steven when he was sick with pneumonia as a kid from the cold ocean outside, still saying those unspeakable words, still shaking. Not even questioning what Steven was doing over in the van.  
"Come back. Come back, baby girl, okay? Please."  
In that short amount of time, Steven had developed an inhumanly quick animosity for George Handley of 42 Water Lane. He was now being interrogated by the police, with Garnet, intuition never failing her, practically screaming about how George's testimony was inaccurate. Pearl was now laying by Greg on the boardwalk's beech-floor, and Steven could've sworn he saw one of the officers move in for a kick at her, but decide it wasn't worth it.  
That was until he heard the back door being kicked open, and one of the performers in a prince costume, all too small, rush out towards Spinel.  
OJ.  
His teacher dove after him, but there was nothing stopping his 13-year-old world from caving around him until one of the older theater participants tackled him. OJ screamed as the weight of his head poured out in tears, kicked, kicked, kicked him in the ribs.  
“C’mon, OJ, OJ, we have to go, everyone else is evacuating, you’re gonna get hurt, we have to-”  
“SHE CAN’T DIE, SHE’S A GEM! SHE’S NOT DEAD, SHE’S NOT DEAD!”  
“OJ, she-” Both boys knew what everyone knew; OJ was screaming lies to the white-streaked sky. But there was something in the back of OJ’s head, deep down, in the back of everyone’s, that was making him scream like this. To make “she can’t be dead” not be enough.  
“SHE’S NOT DEAD, SHE’S A GEM! SHE’S NOT DEAD!”  
And Steven was frozen to the spot as the older boy scooped up the still-kicking OJ by his hips and chest and wrestled him to the back field.  
OJ still screaming.  
___________  
"Come back, goddammit."  
Steven tried crying on her, which was a surprisingly hard feat, although he couldn’t quite explain why. He couldn’t explain why to any of it, really. For a time, he couldn’t explain why the tears landed on her stomach, did nothing else except drop off for some of them. For anyone else he'd tried them on, Lars included, they'd seal the wound, open her eyes, and she'd be back and smile that goofy twenties smile of hers and say, "Hey, long time no see, Stevie!". But she was shattered, not poofed. He was crying on what was essentially shards of spinel and a weak version of the human body she half-owned. The only other problem, as pernicious as it was small, was that she was, like OJ said, a Gem. She couldn't put any more Gem matter through Steven's tears into her, unlike with humans. And she was also human. Even if he used some of the Diamond essence he still had at home, it would do about as much as her tears would. So the commander of the entire Gem Army thousands of years ago was spared years ago, but not a childlike Spinel now. And it was all because she was made like this. She was made like this. She couldn't help being made like this any more than Steven could help the way he was made.  
All things considered, he wished he was made of different stuff. Better stuff, stuff that didn't seem to betray both humans and Gems, stuff that wouldn't earn him the names tossed on him, stuff that could do more and be more efficient about it, like the superheroes he'd watched when he was younger. Stuff that would make him normal, if not to one species then to the other. That would take off...take off the load, he’d a millstone tied around his neck now, and he was drowning now…  
He squeezed her arms hard enough for her to have slapped him in the face if she were there. And what Steven would give for her to do just that.  
"Fuck you, Spinel, fuck you. Come back. Come back, goddammit."  
Ten minutes of doing this.  
Ten minutes, and the sidewalk had a violent mural on it now.  
Before Steven knew it, Lars had coaxed him to stand up, had caught him in a hug, had walked all the way from the port where he’d parked his ship and activated the invisibility cloak soon as he heard of it. Steven could hide whatever he couldn’t express, could hide the names of people he’d give anything to run one of his spiked spears through, but he couldn't hide the fact that he was shaking. Lars responded by swaying the both of them back and forth a few times, a door blown back and forth by the ocean winds. To an outsider, it was unnatural, just as unnatural as Garnet was.  
"Steven, it's okay." Tears filled the eye that wasn't affected by the scar. His voice was heavier now. "Steven, it's okay if you can't save her, okay? It's okay if you can't save everyone, alright? It's okay, it's okay…"  
"I'm fine, Lars." He practically tossed him off.  
Greg and Lars looked at Steven. Didn't call him a failure, didn't leave him on the road. But the difference between Greg and Lars is that Greg just took a horribly shaken breath, folded Spinel's hands over her stomach, picked her up, and helped the rest of them drape her body on the three back seats in the van.  
Spinel's body. Pearl would catch herself using it instead of Spinel, just her Spinel, for the first time three years later.  
They draped Spinel's body on the three back seats in the van, George observed. Not in a body bag, not in the morgue to preserve her properly. Not to a funeral home. But this he only knew from TV. Not in real life. Not in real-  
What the hell even was real?  
They draped Spinel's body on the three back seats in the van, laying her on her side. The police had apologized for their inconveniencing of George and that it wouldn’t happen again before they left, just turned off of the street in what were essentially tons of metal before Steven could say anything. So Steven was the one to gather a mouthful of spit and slam it on George's steel-toed work boots; Garnet was the one to go inside and ask for any spare towels to lay on the seats.  
Garnet was barely out the door when the tears took over her. Steven hesitated, took the towels, gave them to Amethyst, went back over to Garnet when she interrupted her tears with a few "no, stop it"s before beginning again.  
"You okay, Garnet?" The world sucked itself in on him, like a hurricane about to unleash havoc, then stretched itself out again.  
"Yeah." She was shaking to the point of her almost taking a slide to the boardwalk's beech. "I'm fine. It's just…" She slapped the left side of her head. "Ruby!"  
"What about Ruby? Is she okay?!"  
"She's fine, she's just being unruly. No, I'm not being unruly, it's just the way I feel! What we feel doesn’t matter right now; we have to help the situation! What we feel doesn’t matter?!"  
By now, Steven had stepped back reflexively. In case Garnet were to unfuse, he closed one of the doors. Put a hand up when one of the kids who’d undoubtedly missed the evacuation memo tried to get through.  
Garnet shook. She doubled over. Took hold of her visor as if by some sort of instinct she’d never use again. A small crowd gathered. She put up a hand towards Steven, then ripped her visor off and clutched the bottom set of her eyes, putting her other hand to her top one. Her form shook, and-  
Nothing.  
Despite all of that, a minute later, she was panting, panting. She looked at the crowd that had come up to her left, looked at the little girl to her right who said, “She has three eyes!”. She panted, panted.  
“I’m...I’m fine. I just need to calm Ruby… calm myself down. C’mon. It’s awful here…”  
And Steven’s knees felt weak, and Garnet carried him the same way she did when he was a toddler. All he could look at was the little patch of red on the sidewalk and the empty gun, the only things left of his little sister, before it was too much for him and he buried his face, his eyes in Garnet’s sleeve and let his consciousness ebb like the tide over a passing day.  
_  
They came home.  
Pearl couldn't bear to look at the red poured senselessly under Spinel’s hands, but couldn't bear the thought of her walking away from Spinel, either. Garnet took a heavy breath, got the Mickey Mouse blanket Spinel loved to wrap herself in, and covered her entire body with that.  
So she was sleeping.  
__  
She slept all that night, blanket still on her, laid on the Universe kitchen table. There was no sound. Greg had even subconsciously turned off the heat. There were ghosts. Obviously, there was one right in front of them, but the more one walked in the house, the more ghosts came. Ghosts lived in memories, one would learn. Not necessarily just in people.  
Even the waves seemed silent. But they were just as loud as before.  
Connie, in a hoodie, crept her way to the nearest general store. Bought a few tea lights, passed them to Garnet so she could place them around Spinel. And that was all that was there.  
They invited Peridot, Lapis, Bismuth. Most of the night consisted of mixtures between being tugged in and out of sleep, sobbing, and holding the ones next to them as they sobbed. Once or twice, someone would step up next to Spinel, say a few improvised paragraphs, sit back down as everyone’s tears left them in one degree or another.  
Letting the ghosts hover and whirl around them.  
_  
The next morning, there was a permanent stain on the kitchen table; Greg practically begged Randy to take it out to some dump. He’d pay him a hundred dollars, even after Randy said it was free, it was free, don’t worry about it, man. You’re going through way too much already. He’d pay him a hundred dollars.  
They came to Rose’s fountain. Nothing else came to mind on where to bury her.  
It was only then that Steven even thought of crying, was torn apart by the fact that his tears couldn’t help anyone this time, held it back, was put back together in almost an instant. Since they’d carried Spinel out of the van to the lightpad, Connie, who was carrying out one of her own speeches in the neglected West Coast, was involving Steven in a phone call as frantic as it was reassuring. Yes, she’d already preordered her tickets online, yes, she was going to go to the airport as early as she could to fly over there, and Spinel?! How do we know it’s just her that had human traits because of the poison? All of you need to get out of there, all the Gems…  
The last time Steven came to this place, he hadn’t started his high school curriculum yet; asking Connie out was barely a thought. But he still remembered everything. There were thorns here, years and years ago. But one year ago, Pearl and Peridot had worked together to come up with a fiberglass-infused weedkiller that more than did the trick, but made the ground painful to walk on for him and Greg. Almost involuntarily, he bubbled him and his father, dusting off the black sand that all the thorns had hidden up till now. The smell...there wasn’t any words he could use to describe it, couldn’t pluck a single one out of his head, except for the fact that sometimes, it lingered with him. Whenever he smelled it, a chill went down his back. Back to childhood.  
Back to death.  
For the Crystal Gems, funerals were all-too familiar due to them being on the losing side during the war. But as they took their formations, as Garnet clenched the game set Spinel used to play on, it was Steven who heaved himself off his wheelchair and sat stock-still on the ground, shoveling as far as he could reach, moved himself, shoveled. With each fall of the shovel, there came one more thing he’d do to George.  
And by the time he let Garnet and Greg heave him up to his wheelchair, he’d dug himself a trench.  
“Oj lulu, oj luli,” began Pearl in her song. Trying not to let the tears get in the way of her native Gem. “I istys sile, oj luli, oj luli…”  
“Oj lui” was something Steven could translate as much as the smell. A lullaby clear as day, but as self-soothing as it was aggressive. “I istys sile” simply meant “you have shattered.”  
And so they repeated this, Amethyst singing with Pearl. There was a brief scuttling as Amethyst got to her position, Steven letting the air ride through him and the bubble leave him, let the atmosphere of it all drown the atmosphere inside him. He didn’t know he could drown waves.  
But another one came, one that was somehow much more manageable, one that entailed something much more wide, vast, like the cosmos itself. The Diamonds...they had to tell the Diamonds. Not telling the Diamonds could initiate conflict all across the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies, which would be especially tragic for those living next to the inner circles, struggling with constant drought. B-84, U-73, Airjys, all of those planets would crumble to the ground without any suitable defenses or a government that was much more than a dictatorship and without a steady source of supplies. Hunter-gatherer societies, all of which former colonies the Diamonds established, but didn’t have time to do much with other than a memo to their citizens after Era 3 began. And what about legal ramifications? There was prison for murderers, that was one of the most basic facts Steven, anyone knew about the law, even if the death penalty had been abolished in the state of Maryland when he was ten. If George could fake the fact that he didn’t shoot little Spinel, then Steven could fake the fact that she was killed in Virginia, where the death penalty was still in full force. George, George, Spinel, oh, God, why the hell...  
“You have shattered,” Amethyst continued. Sighs were in her voice, but that was all.  
Pearl gasped, almost convulsively, before touching Spinel’s forehead. Just like that, she crumbled; she fell on her knees almost as if she had tripped on something beforehand, planted a kiss on her forehead without missing a beat. She was whispering something. Garnet told him it was a blessing of some sort, but even that Steven didn’t know. And if he had a feeling that if he did know, it would lose all of its reverence.  
And as Greg took the shovel and tossed dirt on all that was left of his baby girl, the wind turned into a rustling.  
Steven turned his head.  
No one was there.  
No one but him, and his father, and the friends that were left, and no sister. Except everyone was his sister.  
Everyone was completely, utterly, undoubtedly alone.  
___  
Nobody knew what to do for those next days.  
It was different for everyone, but if anyone asked them what they were planning to do later on in the week, the responses could range from a simple “I don’t know, all I know is I’m busy” to a full-on bout of rage from Pearl about the expectations that were being forced on her. Asking her what would become of her that far down the road. The gall of it!  
Steven was the one, being a Diamond himself, who tried the hardest to make a story for the Diamonds that was based enough in fact for no one to call them out on it and based enough on lies for the Diamonds not to extinguish the entire planet out of rage. He retreated, as much as he could, to his room, even when there was no one but Connie should he burst out in tears. He’d only go out to get groceries with her or to attend diplomacy meetings with the leader of a planet that the Diamonds may very well snuff out in the next weeks.  
Connie was silent, mostly. Both because of not knowing Spinel and because of her needing to be there for Steven. But in the silence, she took over for him entirely, was a perfect substitute for Steven in the eyes of their supporters save for the fact that Connie was a full-blooded human.  
But both of them avoided, for the most part, Greg’s house. Not the Universe family house, Steven reminded himself for the first time in months. Greg’s house. At first, they tried to help them. Made them some lobster to dip in rogan josh. But Greg and the Gems in the house were just consumed enough by grief to intimidate husband and wife and just independent enough to make it on their own without much trouble.  
Soon as the funeral ended, Pearl stooped down on the bottom of the stairs and screamed.  
Took a breath. Screamed again, laced with a broken heave of a “No, oh...oh…oh…”  
She was practically catatonic for the first day, the first two days. Greg didn’t stray even 100 feet away from her. The meals they could bear to make themselves were brought to him. He held her more than he could remember, even during the night of the fusion, and her him. And he kissed her more. None of it with passion. Sometimes it was a peck, sometimes the kiss lingered, turned to lips hovering over her forehead for as long as she cried. And both Greg and a still-crying OJ, tears as big and chubby as his cheeks rolling down them, did their best to take care of her, to make sure she got up and walked around as much as she could at least once in a while, to not leave her alone to her room. Reality went into her and out of her, a part of her being ripped out and shoved back in with a gale force, not deciding to leave completely. All the while, Steven would come over and visit him, but it was more to be held by his dad than for his dad to hold him. To tell him advice that couldn’t quite reach through to Pearl. To take one look into his eyes and know, right off the bat, when he was tired, or when the grief was making him sick, or when he was anxious, and to do the best he could to fix that. And to tell him, no matter what, that he loved him.  
And it wasn’t until the first day of the next week that Greg gave Steven a phone call.  
“Hey, Steven. You doing okay?”  
“Yeah. You’ve done so much for me already, and for Pearl. I gotta say...thank you. It’s been hard on everybody.”  
“Yeah...yeah. Schtuball. Am...am I a good dad?”  
Amethyst. Amethyst was caught in all the middle of this, even if she and Spinel only had conversations like, "Can you pass the Old Bay?" "I can't, Pearl won't let me shapeshift across the table because it makes her nauseous." But she, too, retreated to her room, elected to play videogames and try and call Steven over. Once or twice, Steven did, at the same time him and Connie brought over food at times both Greg and Pearl were too distraught to know how the oven worked.  
The spare bedroom that Spinel had slept in went untouched except for a few arrangements done by Greg or Pearl at the times when they were too distressed to maneuver the oven. It was during the worst days, the days they were grateful the ocean was feet away from their home. Easy to walk into.  
As for everyone else, even the Gems who barely knew Spinel other than her initial invasion were scrambling. One of their own had been killed by gun violence, and that was all that they needed to know. All they needed to know to start any hailstorm they wanted to. Not for the first time, but for the first time in a different way, an entire community was in unfettered uproar, not knowing where to direct their thoughts except for rationale where none could really be found. Where is George Handley? What are the Maryland laws for homicide? Why isn't he being prosecuted under them? How could they police let this happen? What can we do? How can we kill him, although that was never asked?  
Where is George Handley?  
___  
George Handley of 42 Water Lane, Beach City, Maryland, didn't know what to tell Margaret or his daughter Rosanna as he went home.  
He didn't know what to do. He barely knew what to see. He only knew that as soon as Steven and his family left, as soon as the janitor of the theater, stoic as anyone could be cleaning a child's blood, and started scrubbing, he took him and his pistol in the car and drove off. Not to leave Margaret or Rosanna. That was among one of the few things he wasn't willing to do, no matter whose safety was on the line. He only drove an hour away, out to a makeshift racetrack out in southern Delaware- just a half hour’s drive away, and, like Maryland, not willing to use the death penalty, either. Not a soul in sight. Not in years.  
He didn’t mean to kill a child…  
Not a soul saw him as he took the gun, unloaded each and every bullet, tossing the stuffing out of it, one by one, into a mess of barbed wire and this and that thorny bush in the corner. Half-grunting, half-yelling anger, or an apology, or disbelief at himself, at each one. And when he was finished, he wiped the sweat off of his forehead under his preppy-short brown hair, tried to wrench the gun in two with his bare hands. When he couldn’t, he put it under the tire.  
And drove across the track and ran over it.  
Over and over and over again.  
It had started 2 years ago, after Spinel had finished her attack on Beach City. He’d tried to protect his family, that was all. He could do lots of things with himself. He could stop working his job fixing heating and air-conditioning units, have Margaret get a job of her own that wasn’t just her working from home. That he’d been wanting to do for decades, despite it being the job that projected his family into normality, into the middle class in the first place. But one thing he couldn’t do was let his family be exposed to that danger. The day just after Steven had worked his magic on Spinel and left for Homeworld, when he was walking out to get the daily paper, the middle of his back splitting into two after trimming his bushes, he noticed a crack in the road. A fissure in the earth, he first thought, and we need to call a damn geologist, Margaret, and why aren’t there more around here if those freaks are gonna live here in the first place?!  
But when he stooped down to look, when he took that breath, he noticed a smell. He could almost call it sweet, but there was an edge to it that he couldn’t ignore. It was more vile than the diapers George used to change on his daughter Roseanna when she was younger, It was, without a shadow of a shadow of a doubt, chemical. He called the local chemist, who, swamped with adrenaline and similar phone calls, said that this was only the result of the “recent alien threat”, the CDC was working as hard as they could to determine if there were any risks to it without wanting to cause a scene of mass panic via evacuation, and that the best thing he could do is stay inside his house. So stay inside he did, with no newspaper and no motivation to read anything else.  
Every other part of his life moved forward- he got a salary, his bushes and other crucial parts of a suburban home flourished, his daughter Roseanna was getting good grades in school, and Atlantic United Methodist Church was considering entering Roseanna into the youth group despite her young age because of her precociousness, this time brought out by memorizing Bible verses. It was everything he’d dreamed of, or, at least, what he was told to dream of, although even if you could tell him that without him getting furious at you, he couldn’t point to a specific person or ideology to blame. All he’d tell you is that “I’m conservative, I’ll be the first to tell you that,” with a habitual wipe to the stubble left over from that morning, “an’ I think that’s best for the next generation. Like Roseanna tells me after she comes home from school, it’s kinda...kinda slipping away.” But he never did get another edition of the paper; the crack extended down the entirety of the road. Most of the time, he thought Spinel would come back. She’d be one of the townsfolk, he believed, and when she came, when any of them came to try and kill them like they wanted to kill all of us eventually, he’d be ready. No one in my family gets hurt. No one thought to tell him otherwise; Margaret didn’t care if there was an otherwise, and Rosanna wouldn’t know how to find out if there was one.  
And so, with this mentality, his mind was made up. He finished an agenda made years ago. Spinel was not going to hurt his family, and none of those alien freaks would, if he had a say in it. One background check later and he was fully licensed to shoot a concealed carry in the state of Maryland. He considered getting a rifle, even if it wasn’t the most legal thing to think about doing, but realized how clumsy both he and the rifle would be if a Gem were to attack him. And so he sat on the stairs that night, hugged his daughter tight, made her an explicit, tangible promise that nothing would happen to her or her mother. She laughed. A little darker brown hair due to Margaret’s clearly darker brown hair. “I know, Dad. You always say that you love me, right? Well, keeping me safe is loving me!”.  
Roseanna, however, was ten years old. While she didn’t know the structure or the properties of it like her father did, she knew what a gun was and the basics of how it worked, of how dangerous it was. But her first taste of respect for them came from a tongue-in-cheek remark about how George would treat Roseanna’s new boyfriend, Ken, if he treated her badly.  
When George came home that night after drinking just one shot of something stiff on the way home, no gun in his hand and drooping, ugly tears pouring down his cheeks, the respect turned into outright pain, shoved down her throat. She couldn’t stop asking him questions, kept pawing at his striped polo short that was taut enough to resist the muscle he’d developed working over the years as an HVAC technician. The main one was, “what’s wrong.” Then, “why aren’t you talking to me?” The last one Margaret kept repeating; she’d stayed on the stairs all night, frantically calling anyone and everyone George knew. To see if anyone knew where he was. She grew shrill near the end of it, even smacked at George’s back when he didn’t respond to tapping or any other type of coaxing. “George, will you please speak to me?! The two of us are listening, just...just talk to us!”  
So he stopped. Margaret froze, but it wasn’t ever out of fear. It was out of receptiveness, something the entire family had been working on from Day 1, even before Margaret asked George out after a five-year-long friendship. And it was this receptiveness that kept George’s fear held back, kept the entirety of the Atlantic to come crashing in on him. It was this receptiveness that convinced him to turn to his little daughter, to keep one hand on the kitchen counter as he stooped, one hand on her shoulder.  
“I killed her. And I killed you.”  
__  
It’d been a week since Spinel...since the Gem community was made more much aware of gun violence than they’d ever been before. Pearl was now walking around and getting used to cooking again; Greg tried his best to coax her into using a knife to chop the vegetables without shaking enough to cut Greg. Amethyst had now graduated to playing videogames in the living room, although even she wasn’t immune from spotty outbursts of tears that came and went after ten or so minutes. Peridot and Steven were working together, virulently researching everything about Spinel’s poison, or at least doing anything and everything they could without directly asking the Diamonds anything.  
When the week passed that morning, Garnet was nowhere to be found. There was only Sapphire, tears coming quick without thinking once of slowing; she knew there was no use in wiping them.  
“Sapphire!” Greg rose up so quickly from Pearl’s side on the chair that he had to hold his temple for a moment. “Are… are you and Ruby okay? I’m sorry that none of us thought of you. I mean, this is...this is gun violence. It’s-” he stopped.  
“No, it’s…” she stopped herself seeing Greg’s plight, almost stumbled down the stairs to at first jump, then started to glide midair to her descent on the couch. She let the tears come, more stable than before on the stairs. Amethyst, eyes a mix of bleary and glazed despite needing no sleep, got up from a website she was making in order to organize much-demanded protests about the whole issue; Greg put his hand up, and Amethyst got back to work.  
“It’s Ruby.”  
“Wha-”  
“She...she won’t come out.” Tears came each time she stopped speaking, and even without her future vision, she could practically touch Pearl’s simultaneous disorientation and disdain at the fact that Sapphire was crying. “I know, I know I should leave her alone, I know I should leave everyone alone, but she told me she doesn’t want to talk to me, let alone be with me.”  
Ouch was all Greg could come up with. He didn’t know all the intricate differences between what a relationship was like between him and Pearl and what he thought a relationship would be towards someone like him and Randy. But he wouldn’t appreciate it if Pearl said something like this to him, even if Greg understood.  
“Agh. That’s gotta feel rough, Saph.”  
“Don’t call me-”  
“Sorry! Sorry! It’s just...I’ll talk to you as soon as I can, okay?”  
By “as soon as I can”, he meant “as soon as Pearl decides to fall asleep”. And that didn’t come until he spent the day doing a mix of holding Pearl tighter than he ever did before, helping Amethyst with her website and stumbling up to Spinel’s room, putting all of her things out of place before putting them back together, going through the collage Pearl made of pictures of her and Spinel before arranging all the pictures back to the way they were before. He wished life was pictures, something he wouldn’t have thought of unless he’d been hanging out with some of the late-hippies, early-hipsters back when he was in high school. Wishing he could arrange them back to the way they were before, he thought, before he looked out the window and realized it was sunset.  
Night was when ghosts came. He flipped through one of the shorter, faux-fur trimmed books Spinel had picked at the store before he left.  
Amethyst was nursing a wave-splitting bolt of a headache. “Yo, Greggo. Greggo my Eggo.” Sapphire buried her face into one of the pillows. Amethyst looked at her with a mix of confusion and compassion. “You missed dinner.”  
He heaved a sigh. It was small, but it felt like the largest one to leave his chest that day, and possibly even that whole week. “I know. I know.”  
“Tried to make something for you.” Amethyst massaged her head for a little while more before firing up the computer again.  
Greg motioned for Sapphire to come over to the table.  
“It was all her.”  
“Hmm?”  
“Every nice thing Garnet said to Spinel. It was all her.”  
“‘Hey, Waffles?’”  
“‘Hey, Waffles.’” She tried to splutter out a laugh before she slowly came to, clenched the table.  
In an instant, Greg realized everything. Back when Steven was still living with him, he saw those little moments, more often than what he’d ever ask a child to undertake, when he was faced with a situation like this, when someone came, stumbling, with everything in their life that had spilled onto their heads, and spilled it all onto Steven’s lap. Without a word, he’d see everything. And as long as a bout of evidence didn’t come to suddenly oppose it, he was almost undoubtedly right.  
It wasn’t about Ruby avoiding her that was concerning her, although Ruby was acting rude to her. Then again, everyone had been acting rude to everyone as of late, although nobody did anything as explicit as yell at anyone, or give them a wallop in the face, or slam the beach door and take off in the van, not coming back for days, weeks. It was about her not having said anything then, and about her not being able to say anything now. He didn’t think of getting Ruby himself; that, he said, was something Sapphire would have the strength to do. But Sapphire nodded at some times when introduced to this idea, shook her head at other times. But no matter what she did, she spoke.  
“I never forgave her, did I? Spinel. I always thought she was going to kill all of us.”  
“I suppose I...I suppose I’m shifting who’s not being forgiven now.”  
“What do you do when the person you can’t forgive is simply...gone?”  
_____  
The day after that, it was March 30th.  
The sling on Steven’s arm was taken off.  
But there wasn’t anything Steven could think of, at least by himself, he could celebrate.  
So when Steven was without Connie, and when the nurse, knowing Steven’s age and much of his life story, gave him a pat on the back and a complementary stuffed animal his daughter didn’t want- unconditionally- Steven couldn’t pinpoint where the tears were coming from, or why he couldn’t seem to make them stop.  
_____  
It was the end of March when Sapphire couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take the sight of Pearl not being able to get off of the couch for more than a few hours at a time, couldn’t take the sounds of the crying that seemed to stab at them whenever they least expected it. The end of March when Sapphire couldn’t take the smell of Ruby cooking her something as an unmerited apology for her spending so much time alone.  
And when the slightly-burnt lasagna smell led to Ruby taking it out of the oven and tossing a potholder before putting it down, Sapphire gave her a kiss on the cheek.  
Ruby tried to chuckle, but couldn’t handle a full-on laugh. Couldn’t even think of handling it, at least not yet. “What is it, Saph?”  
“I’m going out, okay? The fridge is pretty vacant right about now. Be right back, beautiful.” It was the type of sentence that went lower and quieter with every sound, the type that no matter how syrupy it was, it went trickling down to the floor instead of into anyone’s mouth.  
The world around her. The world around her, she couldn’t even find any words to describe it now. She took a quick glance at Homeworld, which was still in slight disrepair from the humans’ attacks and already putting up small roadside shrines in Spinel’s memory, before going to the human sector. But what made the world around her vibrant instead of threatening, or even intimidating, even if she wasn’t in any sense of the word fit for combat like Ruby was, was that Sapphire had a plan. A plan that only involved eough future vision for her not to be tired out afterwards, a plan that revolved around who she and Ruby were married in front of and who they weren’t. And a few walks to a few corner stores later, away from all the tourist traps on the boardwalk, she found an entire group of them. Like the posse that jumped on Steven in the Capitol, they were all pale as the newly-painted wall they stood in front of. But unlike them, they were dressed in clothes worn by a younger crowd like them, putting on trends that, for the most part, somehow extended decades. And unlike them, a few of them had the liberty to go on Juuling, and one of the first things that Sapphire did was ask to bum it in a way everyone in the group would call “British”, like so many other instances when Sapphire spoke.  
“You don’t have lungs, silly,” said the in-a-wheelchair boy, the youngest, dismissively, fumbling at the ever-so-Marylandian crucifix charm in his pocket. Didn’t even look like he’d graduated high school yet. “But alright, if it makes you feel better.”  
She mainly focused on letting the little “O”s she’d make with the water vapor and the smell of over sugared cherry put her into a trance, something she’d been craving ever since she and Ruby had been first been frantically called by Pearl to come to the theater, please, right now, I don’t think I can-  
It took a few minutes for the group to finally center around the “if it makes you feel better” remark. Sapphire loved being around the young humans, by all means, even if all humans were astronomically young compared to anyone and everyone living in the Gem sector. She especially appreciated this group, who she’d met at a grocery store one time on her own while Ruby was out teaching in Little Homeschool. With them, they hadn’t the foggiest clue she was a fusion. And with them, she could talk about anything without that taint on her. That taint that spread across the country, even though it tried its hardest to sear it from its mind.  
But what she didn’t appreciate was that they weren’t as receptive as the older ones. But she shook it off, continued making “O”s.  
“What’s eating you, Sapphire?” An older one in the group, a boy with copper hair. Reminded her of some of the older armor the humans were when Garnet was first fighting with the Crystal Gems.  
Sapphire continued making her “O”s; anything else would both set off the image she was making so far and make her cry. So she pointed her finger to the Gem sect, didn’t stop pointing when she realized it shook a little. Some of them started a conversation of how difficult life must be in the Gem sect. Stupid, Sapphire thought. But harmless. She’d let the game keep going, at least for now. How do you sleep, they asked, when everyone else around you is up at night because they aren’t able to sleep in the first place? How the heck do you guys have any restaurants? How do you guys get any food? And finally, the youngest one in the wheelchair touched on something Sapphire felt like replying to. “Heard what happened to Little Homeworld. We’re...really, really sorry about that. And I’m angry at them, too. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure we all are.” Sapphire didn’t look up quickly enough to see if they looked at him or thought their sneakers were more interesting than anything else around them at the moment. “I don’t think any of us are available Sundays, but I’m sure my dad has some stuff from Rommel’s Hardware you could borrow…”  
Something overwhelming punched at her. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, but nevertheless beat it back like all the rest of it. “No, it’s alright. Although I know someone who’s doing a lot of the repairing over there that would appreciate it. You just have to maneuver around the signs…”  
She tried to extend it, found it too awry. Had any of them been able to hear what she had to say, she’d be talking about the protest Amethyst was organizing and how much momentum it was gaining around town, and how proud she was. But instead, the same tears that came cascading down Greg’s banister came down now, and before any of them knew it, they were half-yelling, asking if she was alright, if there was anything they could do for her, if there was any way to find out what was going on. This time, it was the copper-haired one who started his frantic Google searches by the curb; the rest, along with the youngest, were too busy taking her in a bear-hug or patting her on the back or shoulder. Trying to look her right in her eye, blocked by a mop of waist-length hair.  
“Oh, shit. Guys, you might wanna come and take a look at this.”  
One of them trickled over at a time. But the youngest one stayed with her, took ahold of her right hand, refused to go along looking with the rest of them until she nodded. A 1978 Chevy, kept up to almost mint condition by one middle-aged-or-old man or another, came scrutinizing them. They went, in a flurry, to a corner of a nearby parking garage. Cars pulled in, two feet away from touching them. All that mattered to them was that it was two feet away.  
“Sapphire, is this… is this why the protest is happening?”  
The middle of the Gem sect. The posters. Words in English and Gem. “Zabicie mnaszie dieci nie iest ty m’bronics- Killing our child is not defending yourself.” And to top it off, a picture gleaned from Pearl, cropped from the mall when Spinel was laughing at a joke.  
Sapphire started drifting away from reality. Then, she was pushed, and she wasn’t anything but tears on the floor of the parking garage. She could barely process one of the teenagers as she was almost hit by one of the cars. The oldest one took Sapphire by the hand. She wasn’t aware of anything else, only that she was up and walking along with him, till they came to a stop on one of the benches on the boardwalk. She wasn’t even aware of the amount of tourists now that the season had started up for spring break.  
“Sapphire” was called by everyone. Sometimes almost a whisper, sometimes so ferocious that one of the tourists jumped. But about the fifth or sixth “Sapphire”, she put up a hand as reality slowly was collected by her again.  
The tears weren’t stopping; they were planning to soon as the ocean behind her did. She found that she could barely breathe normally, let alone talk. And when she did talk, she almost said a “Ruby” at first, as if Ruby were even remotely close enough to hear her.  
“I...I never told her anything…”  
Now, it was falling apart. She didn’t know who she was addressing it to. Did she address a part of it to Ruby after all? She didn’t know. But the others assumed it was for Spinel, and some only sat looking at the boardwalk and the trash underneath the birch boards. Some tried at patting her shoulder, some told her things that both her and them knew were, to the ends of the earth, cliched.  
It was eight minutes before any of them spoke, and nine before the tears slowed down to a point that she could talk almost normally. Twelve before she had the composure to fumble for her phone and tell Ruby she was coming home, fifteen before she could coherently tell her why and that Ruby, on top of everything, would have to hold her the same way she did thousands of years earlier. To tell her she was, above all, safe. It was what her bones were screaming to know when Ruby had first saved her, and it was what they were crying out for now.  
But when they did speak after the eight minutes, it was arguably more powerful than the Cluster trapped under the ocean. Powerful enough for Sapphire to be able to tell her sooner.  
“Look. Soon as any of us are available, we’ll help you with the protest, a’ight? We don’t like this every bit as you don’t. You’re gonna be alright.”  
But all Sapphire could do as she shuffled off to the lighthouse and to Ruby’s now-lukewarm batch of lasagna was to look at the unease on all the tourists and Gems alike, and to see the end of the trail of flowers Connie set up that led to the theater, and to wonder.  
____  
By the time she did come home, Ruby had made another batch that had seemed to replace Greg, who’d gone over to peek in on how Steven and Connie were coping. She took Sapphire in her arms, stroked her hair. Without a word, she knew the bulk of what was going on, and the both of them went over to the living room to eat the whole batch and to talk about things only Sapphire would find interesting. Just for this sacred hour.  
But they never went to the back porch. They never discovered the reason why Gerg was freed, or where Pearl was.  
Pearl insisted on calling her “Sczhiatkovka”- the newly-created Gem for “volleyball”. It bore more of the politeness, the traditionalism, the respect that was hidden behind the gaping wound around her eye. About the time Ruby was deciding she needed a second batch, she’d come up to the door. “Soon as I heard” was all she said before she choked back her own tears at the sight of Pearl. Curled up into the fetal position as if she were about to die for herself, nothing but her or the breeze for any type of company that would keep her anguish level, let alone alleviate it. It took a complete fifteen minutes of deliberation to convince Greg that yes, she was fully competent to handle Pearl and that he deserved to be with Steven for awhile, and another fifteen to convince Pearl to go to the back porch.  
But until then, they’d been almost silent. Almost.  
“I...God.” Why was she using this much language? “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, Pearl, I don’t know what to say.”  
“Then don’t say anything, I don’t want to say anything, I don’t want to talk. Don’t want to breathe-”  
“Pearl.” She put a hand on the Cinderella-blue jacket, moved her way up to her shoulder, and that was what started the crying again. Pearl took Szchiatkowka’s hand with her free one, pressed it against her cheek, had her feel the flow that had been the crux of her life for that past week. She shook, and she let Sczhiatkovka, both eyes closed now, lay her arms around her, halfway what Greg had done. That let her calm down, let Sczhiatkovka wait until the shaking went down to trembling, trembling, trembling, stopped.  
When she did stop, Pearl was the one to take Szchiatkovka by the hand. She let Pearl sit at the edge of the couch for a few moments. To just sit, and to let herself take in the breeze from the ocean, the ever-constant memories, the logistics of a community being whiplashed this way and that way and to let it slash across her that she had lost a child. Standing, not stillness, countered this loss now that Szchiatkowkal was there, and all Pearl could do was to let the dinner-plates under her eyes settle from their own twitching into the stillness that took over the rest of her body, to watch her feet and the weight of the floor beneath her feet as she shuffled to the back of the porch. Out of all the things that could’ve been sprinting through her at that point, it was the possible thought of fusion; she dismissed it. She wouldn’t wish what she herself was going through on anyone; Szchiatkovka, living in Little Homeworld and being an abject member of the community, exposed to the brunt of the social damage that had been done when George had fired the pistol-  
“I could’ve….Szchiakova, I had to watch over her, if I was quick enough, I could’ve-”  
“Shh...shh…”  
Szchiakovka was on her shoulder, singing with the ocean’s breeze. A new memory tumbled into Pearl.  
They’d looked at the sunset together, hadn’t they, after they’d fused? They were in this exact position. Except Pearl was the one who was the vulnerable, even huan one now, who needed the other arguably more than the other needed them. They were faced by the same eyes towards the same eyes. And they could feel their hearts beating faster, faster…  
It wasn’t anything that would catch the attention of anyone walking had the backyard shoreline been public property. But Pearl buried her head inside of Szchiakova's arm. Distracting herself with its mix of soft and taut. Letting her fall into it, and all the while, Pearl was stroking her hair. Letting the weight of the sky fall on them.  
Another thought came, extraneous. Spindles with no origin. She could have loved her once. Loved her like Greg loved Rose, like Ruby loved Sapphire, like she loved Greg now and he her If things'd turn out differently, if Szchiakova had been there to help her teach Spinel how to bathe herself, if she'd been there from the very first day after George came home, the fragments of the pistol still in the racetrack, she could’ve loved her. This scene could have turned into something more colorful than the wind-torn streaks of the sun-trodden sky.  
If Szchiakovka had really came as soon as she heard.

___

The capitol of Homeworld splayed across the desert could have been mistaken as a gargantuan spider even by a fairly intermediate pilot.  
Pozne do Nephryt swept up, all by hand, the last of the shards of rock-dust, given off periodically by each Gem from time to time, much like molding. It was pure carbon residue, known to the citizens of Earth, Rose’s colony, Kolonia do Rosa, as “graphite.” A Ruby by nature, she adhered to the stereotype of being protective, tooth and nail. She wanted to ensure that nothing would hurt her beloved Nephrite, including their supporters.  
Pozne was somewhat of a late bloomer, coming out 50 years after she was needed, causing her right leg to be formed improperly. She walked with a limp for the rest of her life, but proved to be so skillful with planning one of the battles a few miles from her that she was spared from the Diamonds and sent to have an indentured-servant esque contract with a Nephrite, as well as help her with planning a few upcoming skirmishes remotely. Even before Era 3 began, even when the caste system was still ingrained into the minds of each Gem that sprang out of one of the Kindergartens on one of the Gems’ daughter planets, Pozne had told her friends, those who had sprang up with her when she was created for the purpose of sentry duty in one of the fortresses in what now was the American Midwest, everyone except the Diamonds of her relationship with her beloved Nephrite, Kurza. This slammed doors so quickly with people that they swung off of their hinges, revealed darker parts of them in rooms Pozne hadn’t even thought to step into. And other doors opened her with such a force they created gales with a scale of a small hurricane, almost snatched her and Kurza in to protect them from the darker rooms.  
This time, however, she didn’t venture with Kurza. She could almost taste something off-kilter in the air, filtered by powerful organosulfuric compounds that killed a significant portion of the residue that accumulated on them so they wouldn’t have to clean themselves off. She didn’t address it, but much of the premonition came from whispers she’d heard about an hour earlier. A Spinel had been gunned down and killed by one of the humans, and not one word had come from the Diamonds or any of their administrations. And all throughout that hour, she was at first touched by, and then slowly gripped by, this bitterness. She looked around at the perfectly scrubbed slabs of artificial quartz that made up much of the buildings, looked at the perfectly paved roads that glowed an iridescent, neon orange when seen from ships overhead. Did they care for the colony at all? And if they cared for their colony that much, then how much they truly cared about them!  
She wasn’t going to speak up unless she brought along at least one witness. She could come home and ask Kurza; however, any testimony from her would be immediately shut down by much of Homeworld’s higher authority. Any forms of romance, any fusion other than for the sake of essential operations or combat, were highly illegal, with the official punishment being harvesting. I heard of one, were whispers she’d heard years ago. Poor thing was electrocuted in the process in order to bring the gemstone out more swiftly, at least in theory. It’s placed out in a room they have in the back of the building. When it’s completely stockpiled, they’ll showcase everything they have to deter everyone else. What disgusting beasts they are, and they call themselves Gems! The best of us!  
She found one. One of her friends, or the closest thing to that concept, whom she’d come across whenever running the errands needed for Kurza. She may as well have said those rumors, but this was the case with any other. A Zircon, doing errands for an Emerald; that alone garnered both attention from Gems such as Pozne and fear towards her Emerald. She was buying relatively tiny slabs of artificial quartz; it made for one of the densest, most essential materials in the whole of Homeworld. Busy work, Pozne almost immediately realized; the Emerald was most likely concentrating on something back at home with such delicacy that even one of her servants in the room would throw her off.  
Which made the Zircon the perfect witness.  
“Przevievny!” called out Pozne; the Zircon turned her head, causing the scorching sun reflected from one of the windows to almost blind Pozne. “I need your help with something!”  
Przevievny saw the fact that Pozne’s hands were empty and assumed there was something she couldn’t find; the Emerald was so distractible as of late that Przevievny found herself at the vendors almost twice as much as Pozne was. “What do you need help finding?”  
“A witness.” Right to the point, one of the reasons why her relationship with Kurza eventually turned into something more than “traditional employment”- the new term the planet used for those who still adhered to the master-servant caste system. The environment around the market was one of the few pockets in the capitol where Gems still followed the “traditional employment” system, all of them connected somewhat to the Gems. But never directly- should Steven ever visit and find the system still in place, he’d ust all of his quiet force to make sure the system came down crumbling even more than it did.  
“A witness?” replied Przevievny. “For what?”  
Pozne took some of the graphite, the same material she’d swept up earlier that day, from the ground, and filled a triangular vial with it. Along the lines of what the citizens of Kolonia do Rosa called a “pencil”, but with much higher precision and with a small motor, which made it powerful enough to etch on light-colored rocks and crystallic materials. She then went up to one of the stands and used all of her remaining coins in her pocket to buy some slabs of specially- treated pumice. Light enough for the average Gem to hold up for about an hour without tiring, yet not fragile enough for it to shatter if it was written on.  
“Here.” Pozne offered the finished product to Przevievny. “Kurza keeps a tally of my funds tighter than your Emerald probably does, but it would be cruel to impose another favor on you.”  
Przvievny took some of the strands from her clear, almost transparent, non genuinely glittering dress and tried her best to fumble a bracelet for her Emerald. “Thanks. But still...it wouldn’t hurt to give my Emerald a present in case she becomes angry due to my tardiness. And I do have a case in about an hour, so I hope whatever you’re thinking of doing won’t irritate my Emerald.”  
My Emerald. My Diamond. The only person she’d call “my” is her Nephrite, and only in the throes of a full bodied kiss that lasted a long, long, while.  
“Trust me, Przevievny. It won’t be.”  
It was about an hour before Pozne made her way to the grounds of the Diamonds’ palace, buried in the crowds. She winced. Ten billionGems were living in Homeworld. Ten billion. More than were on Kolonia do Rosa even now, and one of the main reasons why she felt the Diamonds looked upon the colony initially. Pozne almost felt pity for the Diamonds at the amount of time they’d been overwhelmed; a resource crisis like that would send Pozne into a panic attack before in a state to do anything to alleviate it. About one hundred and thirty million had migrated to Earth in order to alleviate the resource crisis. She could also respect the Diamonds, at least slightly, for being able to manage a crisis this colossal with this slight of an alleviation.  
But she didn’t respect them enough to not say anything. They were efficient, yes, but they were completely uncaring. Spinel’s death only exacerbated this idea.  
The sand stung her nose, her eyes. It went into the surrounding cameras, was tossed against the glass shields that treated it the same way Pozne treated the graphite dust.  
But she was ever resolute in looking at the castle entrance.  
She turned to Przevievny, who stood by with her writing materials and nodded. Pozne turned back a split second later. “Our ruling entities of Homeworld, for millennia, you have ensured our people have spread. But with every passing hour your empire spreads, basic principles such as empathy...and I’d even say courage...slip away and shatter like our soldiers.  
You call us your children. But your child is dead. Just this morning, the people around me, your people, have told me of her death. She has been killed by a human, by a citizen of Rose’s colony. And you, you who have waged war against these humans before for committing brutalities such as this, now sit in your palace?”

Another Ruby came somewhat close to her; this one she knew. But there were others surrounding her, carrying small scabbards to prod or stab, depending on how aggressive the Gem they faced.  
Pozne whipped her head back towards the castle entrance. “Is an empire nothing but an arbitrary set of numbers and calculations? Is there any soul behind the words of our anthems? Are the words you bury your decrees with truly what they mean? Or are they as empty as I suspect they are?!”  
Just above her subconscious, Pozne noticed some of the people doing errands around the castle taing a few hop-steps back, with some of the higher-ranking Gems even looking like they’d picked up the weight of three slabs of quartz when there was only one in their hands. One of the Rubies prodded her shoulder. Pozne looked behind her, noticed that Przevievny had one hand hovering over her mouth, but the other frantically scribbling every word she could use to describe what was happening.  
“You have sat by, devoid of emotion, for far too long. I have long been in a romantic state with my Nephrite, and neither of us have been shown the least bit of compassion from the likes of you. Where do your loyalties lie? Do they lie with us or your colony? Or, seeing as they are one in your eyes, seeing as much as you care about either of them, do they lie with yourself?”  
“Please,” whispered the Ruby she knew. She hesitated as she reached out the scabbard farther after another Ruby elbowed her shoulder. Both Rubies flinched as a third Ruby laid a hand on Pozne’s shoulder. “Ma’am, you’re disturbing the peace, I’m going to need you to come with-”  
“UNHAND me!” cried Pozne, and with one kick, there was a sickening crack.  
All the parties were silent, inching their gaze towards the kicked Ruby. Pozne felt the breath catch in her throat as she heard a pained grunt from the Ruby she kicked before her breathing turned to gasps for air. She backed up and tried to catch the shards in her hands, cupped in front of her ruined chest. One of the other Rubies laid her across the ground. Both of Pozne’s hands slowly flew to her own chest, then up to her mouth, with all the rest as they watched, powerless. All that the kicked Ruby could do was groan, hold the shards in her hands, and shake her head a few times, wincing, in defiance of this pointless way to die. As one of the Rubies squeezed her shaking wrist tighter, the kicked Ruby glanced at Pozne with mostly pain, but a hint of childish frustration, as if she’d lost a game of hide and seek, before she shuddered and passed away in the other Ruby’s arms.  
Pozne could feel nothing but pain now as she was tackled to the floor. She looked wildly around the plaza, tried to kick her feet in the air as the Ruby that’d held the one Pozne kicked took the shards and scrambled off to the palace.  
Prezvienvy was nowhere to be found. She took that in like a punch, let the tears fall down her face before she felt searing pain in the back of her neck, where her Gem was. She gasped and choked, clutching at the tip of the sword that jutted out the front of her neck, before she took the kicked Ruby’s outstretched hand.  
She was gone.


	20. Season 7, Chapter 7, Part 1: Tranza do Japa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the full chapter, Google docs kept on crashing on my crap computer. So here you go!  
(I promise you that you'll see some intergalactic action- I don't plan on this being a soap opera for any means. TRUST me.)

____  
"Tranza do Japa" translates literally into "a soldier's trance." However, it can also be used in civilian situations, although in Gem culture, this often goes unacknowledged. It'd been a week since OJ had come home, blood on his knee.  
"You okay?" Gene'd said. It was the day Spinel died, after one of OJ’s friends’ parents gave him a ride home. Gene stopped and watched for a while, expecting to see his just-barely-in-middle-school little brother roll down his pant leg and reveal a fresh scrape. OJ would claim he'd handle it, then he'd spill the bathwater everywhere when he tried to maneuver his leg over the bathtub, and Gene would help him the rest of the way…  
But there was nothing now. Not even tears, save for one or two when Gene put a hand on his shoulder. Him having been hurt by someone was his first and only thought, with anything related to "girlfriend trouble" being pushed down the list by at least a hundred. "Who?". He could see his mind charging like the buffalo an umpteen amount of his great grandfathers had hunted. "C'mon, OJ, you gotta tell me who did it to you!"  
“To me?!” was all OJ could get out before the world turned into a funnel and he started breathing like a rabbit. Gene winced, tried to call out for his mother. But he almost immediately knew there was no point- she’d only adopted them from the New York reservation in an attempt to convince her friends that no, she wasn’t bigoted, despite the fact that she regularly went on tirades against interracial marriages and homosexual marriages and Gem marriages and any sort of marriage that wasn’t what she had.  
It would’ve taken a few hours for Gene to get OJ some of his favorite bean broth and warm apple juice with honey, to put on something fairly mind-numbing on the flatscreen, to get OJ to say anything else coherently. But after a half an hour, Gene stooped down. Saw the cut on his knee, and was bothered by the sight of what looked like sugar every time he passed by. Surely, OJ wasn’t diabetic. If he wasn’t, then seeing clumps like this in his blood was a medical emergency- something their mother wasn’t capable of handling. He’d have to hop into the sedan, strap OJ into the passenger seat, somehow skedaddle the both of them to the hospital half an hour away from Beach City…  
He wasn’t ready for it. So he squeezed a little of the blood out of OJ’s jeans to put into the smallest container of Tupperware they had; Gene was flooded with relief when OJ didn’t do even as much as squirm in pain. But fear, almost paralyzing fear was sprinting quick towards the relief, and so he rolled up OJ’s pant leg, hoping to see nothing more than the ame old scrapes he used to get when running down the dried-mud driveway back in New York.  
Nothing.  
There was nothing. OJ almost brought a hand to his mouth as Gene went to the bathroom, snatched one of the baby wipes and practically soaked OJ’s knee. Nothing. The skin was perfectly intact.  
The blood wasn’t OJ’s.  
Gene slammed on the power button to the TV, and OJ was brought out of the trance.  
“OJ… what happened?”  
It took a half a minute for the tears to show, and by the next half, OJ was a sobbing mess. So all Gene did was stroke his hair, pat his shoulder, keep a hand on his hair until OJ could pump out a few sentences.  
“It was Spinel. We all had, to get, out of, the, theater...”  
OJ started his rabbit’s breathing again; Gene knew by the way that he looked at the ground, seemed to be both absorbed and terrified by every item in the room, that he wouldn’t get anything else out of him. He fumbled, called the theater, could barely tell through the squiring static that it’d gone to voicemail. He hung up, tried again. The third time, he started typing up the website, tried to convince his mother it was an emergency when she stormed down the stairs, half-yelling as to why he was using her computer and that he could at least use his, even in an emergency. So what if it was old? Still, he triple-clicked into the contact page, found it was empty before grit-teeth-apologizing and forking over the computer to his mother.  
“OJ, do you have any other friends in the theater?”  
Nothing. It was at least worth a shot. Gene took him, spread him out across the couch, didn’t react with anything other than a relaxed noise, in between a sigh and a whisper, when OJ fell asleep.  
“Sorry, Mom. It’s just that OJ-”  
“It’s alright, sweetheart. It’s just that...you’re seventeen now, honey. You should know these things. Just remember that touching others’ property isn’t right, and you should avoid it.”  
He looked at his mother’s hopelessly pale skin compared to his hardwood tan, and almost chuckled before the emergency lapped at his heels again and he called Spinel’s number.  
Nothing.  
Second time.  
Nothing.  
Third, fourth, fifth.  
Nothing.  
“Gene!” His mother again. “What’s the matter with you? Is the phone broken?!”  
No, no, no...oh, God, what was he going to ask Pearl and Greg?! “Hi, your daughter didn’t answer the phone, and I think my brother has some of her blood on his pants, do you think anything serious happened to her?” Did he not know tact? What if they didn’t know anything about her, and he was the one to have told them like that?  
Surely there was something the police could do. Either species. And surely the Gems had one, right?  
So he went to the seat OJ sat in before, muttered a “sorry” to his mother in resignation. Flipped on the TV. Felt his mind have a charming sense of warmth to it, started laughing when one of the characters made an underhanded political joke that his mother mistook for something “offbeat” and that “would only make sense to someone with his personality.”  
Spinel had been dead for three hours.  
____  
The call came at two in the morning after Spinel’s death. While Pearl was more in a state of wakefulness than she’d ever been since Rose died in childbirth, Amethyst felt she was more coherent.  
“Hnngmmm?” Gene took a fist and rubbed the area in between his eyes. “Who’s this?”  
“Pearl, I-it’s-” she went into the same breathing OJ did that night, but interrupted by an abject howling of a sob. There was the sound of rustling, and by the time Gene could comprehend what’d happened, Amethyst was already starting. “Hey, Gene. I know...I know your brother was pretty close with Spinel. Didn’t tell as at the last minute, but, hey, we’ve all got secrets, don’t we?”  
“Hmm.” All he’d understood was “your brother was pretty close with Spinel.” Didn’t absorb the “was” quite yet, something that had it happened, it would be jarring enough for him to flinch and drop his phone, watching as it tumbled off the bed and woke his parents.  
“Anyway, we tried and called the theater, but they didn’t call back.”  
Gene chuckled.  
“What, you tried it too?”  
“Oh, yeah.” There was no one in front of him, but he still took his hand and made a flapping motion for her to continue.  
“Okay. Pearl’s told me now to quit dancing around it, so...here you go. The theater was evacuated because they heard the sound of gunfire outside. Pearl and Spinel were walking to the theater. Pearl’s OK, but Spinel….Spinel didn’t make it.”  
She knew not to hang up for at least a minute, which Gene needed most of to process it, let alone to know why the hell he was shaking to the point that he was slightly afraid of waking up his parents with the noise. He knew how to process change by now, had gone through just enough hardship not to recoil from it too virulently. He let the air flow throughout his body. Like a well-kept together building, he told himself. Back a few years ago, he’d tried to make his family some money by commuting into New York City and maintaining some of the skyscrapers. It was...ruthlessly high, enough to make his legs shake when he so much as climbed a tree now...but he shared the fate of the immigrants a hundred years ago, stood where they stood. And it gave him a rush of pride to spin around with his air now.  
And he let it go.  
“Do… do you know who did it?”  
“Oh, no, no. I mean, I’ve thought about it an’ all, but I’m too busy organizing something about gun violence. I know, I know. I should be doing something more specific. But I don’t want to anger them too much, you know?”  
She took another type of breath, the type that told Gene she was letting drop the weight of a thousand fear-flinches.  
"Politically, socially, whatever you wanna call it, with Steven doing what he does, it's been...an absolute sthole. Sorry." A few seconds, a faint whooshing sound that may or may not have been Gene's new phone. Something his mother kept bringing up whenever asking for a favor, regardless of the size. "Heh. Had to look around. Nobody's here."  
“So she didn’t make it.”  
She felt the discordance in the air. “No.”  
He looked at OJ. He’d be lying to himself if he didn’t see the stain on the middle by a popsicle eaten some winter’s day when he was sick with a stomach bug. He could see the tears streaming down his face. And he told himself something he made sure was ingrained in his mind before he told anything else to OJ that would traumatize his. He’d get this bstard. Or, if he was in a situation to where people were looking at the both of them in their showdown that he was already fleshing out, at least put him in prison enough for his own mind to shrivel like the ground did away from him in the skyscraper.  
He’d get this bstard.  
____  
It’d been a week now since George fired the pistol.  
Amethyst didn’t expect anyone to join her and Sapphire in the investigations. Ruby eventually came, battle-trodden, from her room upstairs, but put up a hand when Gene asked her what was wrong. It wasn’t the first place Gene visited the house- he’d been the main chauffer to pick up OJ from his visits- but there was still an air of strangeness to it all, even without him knowing the vast majority of those living in the house were aliens. He tried to pinpoint it, but he eventually came up with the fact that someone had grown up here. Had a childhood here, and memories that Gene couldn’t possibly try to imagine. He imagined someone had the same reaction when visiting the reservation, and with that thought, he adjusted himself, and the seat hugged him this time instead of trying to push him out.  
Ruby emerged, battle-worn, from her bedroom. Foam was on her face; Sapphire pointed it out before she chuckled with just a glimpse of sheepishness before ripping it off. “Who’s this?” Ruby casually set her gauntlets on the bench as she made a beeline for the phone to call Steven and Connie with. By now, Steven was still recovering in his wheelchair, with Connie having practically taken the lead in terms of political exploits, staging speeches and negotiations from home so she could fill in his role without abandoning him. Gene half-gulped, half-wheezed out his name before clearing his throat and saying it properly. “I’m OJ’s brother. Spinel’s boyfriend’s brother?”  
She turned back. Tilted her gaze up slightly. “Then I don’t blame you one bit for being here.”  
They started the same way they did when investigating who threw the stones, with Amethyst at the ready at her clipboard. Without Pearl there, however, things didn’t go as smoothly. First, they forgot to put a plan in place for protecting those they interviewed, even if the idea was glossed over for eight seconds or so. At that point, they considered telling the rest. Finally, it ate them up too much, and they decided to resolve it with Gene going over to where Greg and Pearl were; Greg only nodded numbly, and Pearl ended up not doing much more than squeezing Greg’s hand tighter without Gene’s notice.  
“Alright, alright,” began Sapphire, before she realized that leadership tumbled out of her hands and looked at Ruby. Ruby closed her eyes and heaved a sigh before they walked towards each other and became one after a hug that was tight enough to bring tears. Garnet stood up seconds later, albeit tottering a little.. Her eyes were a little wide, but she realized they were only mirroring Gene’s before they began. “Let’s begin. What do we know so far, other than the location and time?”  
“Not much,” admitted Amethyst. “I mean...we’ve never seen or heard of this guy before. We don’t even know if he lives here, or if he took off. I mean...we don’t even know he’s alive! I…”  
Before Gene knew it, he was putting a hand just barely on Amethyst’s shoulder. She didn’t reply with anything other than a glance that served as a bullet in itself, but she nevertheless slowed her breathing enough for her to be coherent enough to have asked Gene to take his hand off if it were still there.  
“Sorry. It’s just that I do it to OJ when he’s stressed out, and you kinda...remind me of him, in a way.”  
She smiled a little and fired a “nah, it’s all cool beans” before starting again. “Alright. I took it way too far there. Let’s start small. I...well, I don’t know anything about him.” She left it at that.  
Garnet sat for a few moments, made a slightly long “hmmm-mmm” noise that Gene wasn’t quite accustomed to. Caught out of her pensive look, she said, “Both Ruby and Sapphire here’ve seen a whole, whole lot of different faces. Any one of them could’ve been George.”  
Amethyst ran a single finger through her hair. “Well, can you try future vision? Maybe we find out about him later?”  
She shook her head. “My future vision only works a few seconds into the future, unless I’ve been fused here for at least a few days. And even then, I can only imagine possibilities. It’ll take me a bit to filter out all of ‘em if I can’t find one with George in it. And even if there is the possibility of me unfusing, I can only lay out a future to where I don’t intervene. You’ve been with me for awhile, Amethyst. You should know this.”  
“I know, I know, it’s just…I need something to work. I...” she turned to the side fast enough for her hair to hit Pearl as she was passing by. “Gene, does this make any sense to you? I know how overwhelming this can get.” Despite it all, Gene could still see a few stars springing up behind her eyes.  
“Uh… yeah, actually. I watch a lot of sci-fi.”  
“Good.” Amethyst put up a thumb and picked up her clipboard again. “That’s gonna help you more and more the more you stay here.”  
When she turned her head the other way, Pearl was by her side.  
Exhausted. So many tears that Gene could smell them, but they were much more related to the ocean outside, mixed with a new car smell, than something even remotely like a pool towel dipped too long. So much weight pressing, pressing, pressing down on her. All at once, he knew how Pearl had been related to Spinel. Pearl had the look Gene wished his own mother would give him.  
And each thought shut down.  
“You need, a...a witness’ description, don’t you?”  
Only Garnet dared to nod before Amethyst took Pearl in a full-on embrace, letting her hair fall into Pearl’s lap. Pearl’s face tightened, fighting arguably harder than she’d did in the Gem War, Zhayna do Kodoros, before she let the emotions spiral into the chair and she buried her face in her arms. Amethyst slowly slunk back, gripped her pencil for comfort.  
She took a breath that weighed more than a steel bar. “He was about Greg’s height. Maybe even a little shorter.” She didn’t react to the noise of Amethyst’s frantic writing. “He had brown hair. I think...I think it had gel in it…”  
She paused for a half a minute. Greg, who was standing a few feet from the table and leaning on the back of the couch, got a fleece blanket from behind him, making sure it was nowhere near the color or design that Spinel’s blankets were. Soon as Greg handed it to her, she kissed him on the cheek before her lips hovered over it for a few seconds. She shook a little, draped the blanket over her, and something came back to her face. Not quite light. A shadow being taken away, maybe. But not quite light.  
“He was wearing a v-neck shirt that was the color of...I think khakis. But he was wearing jeans with a...some sort of brown tag on the side…” she wrapped herself tighter.  
“Wranglers, Levi’s, something like that.” Greg. Everyone turned their heads to him, so he stared right back at them, hands and head frozen, before they turned back, one by one.  
“And that’s it.” The world around her head turned to fog; the tears started again before Garnet sat up, ready to help her up or even carry her back to her seat, at least until Greg half-nudged, half-pushed her away. Even on the way back, she had something to say. “That’s it, I don’t remember any of it, then he started firing the gun, and…”

The three of them sat there for around ten seconds, none of them saying a word. Gene’s phone buzzed; he’d ignore it regardless, considering it was most likely his mother, but now he barely even knew it did anything.  
Amethyst jotted a few almost angry words at the bottom of her paper. “Alright. That...that really helps.” Another pause; the doorbell rang. It was Steven and Connie; the both of them exploded in a flurry of conversation over the table, with Steven wheeling back and forth from contributing at the table and seeing Pearl’s state.  
“No” was what Connie said. “I haven’t even heard of him, and while we do have political connections, I doubt if they’ll have any technologies to track anybody. And even if they did, we wouldn’t have nearly enough info to put it in.”  
“So that’s it?” Steven craned his head to reach over Amethyst’s shoulder; Amethyst instinctually put her armpit over it the same way they did when Steven was younger. Steven chuckled for a little while before slipping out. “I mean...that’s a whole, whole lot of information, assuming he lives there. I mean, we’ve all got a pretty good idea where they antis are, right?”  
“There’ll all anti” called out Greg, who by now was halfway in between the table and Pearl.  
“Right,” replied Connie. “But if I hated Gems...hated them so much that I would be willing to kill one of them...I’d live as far away from them as possible. So that’s a good place to start- we’ll work from end of Beach City farthest from Little Homeworld and back.” She looked at Steven.  
“Wait. Look at this guy.” He had Amethyst hold up the paper; considering the fact that Amethyst was on a chair now, she was sitting taller than her, if only slightly. The marks and scratches on the chair were flung subconsciously into him. The little nervous biting habit when he was a child, the times he used it when he was first learning how to handle an Era 2 Homeworld sword… “A shirt that looks like a khaki? Greased hair? He’s not going to be living somewhere in the center of town. That’s the worst housing in the whole town. But the outskirts? I dunno about that.”  
“Yeah,” chimed in Greg. “I don’t think a person making over a hundred thousand a year would like to be caught in Wrangler’s.”  
“Somewhere in between?” asked Steven. He slipped his eyes around the room, meeting each one by one until the room was quiet enough to hear the waves in the back. The backdrop of his entire life. What type of person would he be, what type of life would he have if he hadn’t had their noise in the background ever since birth, ever since his mother first knew she was pregnant and took her and him out back to half-scream, half-laugh in sheer glee, to feel the waves splash on her belly…  
“Somewhere in between” was all he said before the courtroom was adjourned.  
___  
“What are you doing?!” exclaimed Gene’s mother the first time he snuck out in the middle of the day to start the investigation. “Don’t go out, you could get hurt!”  
So Gene waited until later, waited until she was the slightest bit busy translating a few phrases of Seneca. Then, he took a still-floored OJ by the hand and went out the front door, with their mother only replying with a dismissive wave before continuing to type. Soon as he left his mom, he felt the biting on the back of his head, but ignored it and made sure OJ didn’t trip over the house his neighbor had left dragged out to the sidewalk.  
There was no point in asking if OJ was okay, but Gene did so anyway. OJ shook his head, asked Gene not to talk about it until they reached the house. Until they started investigating, he said, with a type of fire in his eyes that Gene almost thought OJ couldn’t make. Gene smiled a little, said an “alright”, tried not to look any of the tourists square in the eye. As far as he knew, people like him and OJ were viewed not as badly as the Gems, but somewhere down in those levels or another. Last time he made the mistake of wearing his dream catcher t-shirt, half looked away while the other half couldn’t seem to stop looking. It was a game he liked to play. Loved to toy with in his hands.  
A toy he forgot as they approached the front door. Sand blew in their eyes, but they’d lived there long enough to where they didn’t react besides Gene sneezing. Gene offered to ring the doorbell, but OJ whipped it away, on the verge of even growling at him. Gene resorted to staring at the ocean, noticing when the waves stilled that there was something, a mix between a tower and a blob, something...jet black, something...humanoid...it was probably a rock hit strangely by the light, but Gene couldn’t help but take a brisk photo before the door opened.  
OJ wasn’t anything like Gene had seen before the events of this past week. His little fists were curled and squeezing the life out of the bottom of his jacket’s sleeves. Eyes still wild, teeth the slightest bit bared, eyes furrowed. Gene wanted to say “George isn’t in there”, but the last thing anyone needed that day was sarcasm.  
Steven was the one to open the door, about OJ’s height due to his wheelchair. He looked just as wildly around ad OJ did staring straight forward. They all waited. For what, they didn’t know, until a breeze nudged their cheeks and Steven bid them come in, toppling backwards onto the shoe bench next to the front door. Pearl took the same look as both of them, and before Gene knew it, a version of her, identical and the color of jet-polished but faded labradorite, came to catch Steven.  
All with no one else’s knowing.  
Pearl slumped her head back on the table, exhausted, but in a few short bursts of energy, OJ was right behind her again. Gene closed the door on Steven’s behalf and started inching his way with him towards the table.  
“Oh, good!” Amethyst turned a page on her clipboard, the words already smudging all the way to the piece of cardboard on the back. “We called you, like, six dozen times!”  
“Two,” corrected Garnet.  
____  
George Handley.  
It could’ve been 2 weeks of investigation. 2 weeks of sleepless nights, 2 weeks of Gene and OJ sketching out elaborate plans to escape in the middle of the day, or at least to go whenever their mother wasn’t home for God knows what reason. It could’ve been 2 weeks of Steven and Connie having to make camp in Greg’s house for the night, wake up the next day, have breakfast, and start again. 2 weeks of the whole of them slowly losing their sanity as the beach pounded on, turned the artificial sands inward and outward, inward and outward again. Or it could’ve been more than 2 weeks. Months. Years, even. It could’ve been a project they worked on until the moment they died.  
But it was 2 days of fusion.  
“George Handley,” Garnet had said.  
At first, nobody reacted with anything too extreme. But with just a few seconds of time, it was Connie who'd snatched the clipboard quickly enough to tear a few strands out of her massive hair. She jotted the name down, and by the time she was finished, she was being questioned with the same vigor the police had questioned her about an hour after Spinel's death. And it was during the questioning that she heard the name from the police, who somehow seemed to look on with a more compassionate heart than even Garnet herself thought she had. To believe everything George had to say.  
"It takes awhile for the memories to come back," Garnet admitted. "To go into sync."  
The entire room exploded into a smoke bomb full of voices, a blast of sea most speeding up like a bullet towards the waiting boardwalk. Some asked her how she knew that, and others practically yelling at her as to why she held back the name for so long. All of the almost-riots stopped when Garnet put her hand up.  
"I know most of you have experienced fusion." She looked on a little solemnly at Gene and OJ, eyes wide and looking into each one of those in the room, as if that alone was going to answer the questions pounding in their head. "Firstly, let me explain what it is to the newcomers. Then, I'll say what's relevant as to how I got the name."  
After her explanation, she walked to the middle of the living room to be closer to Pearl. She put a hand on her shoulder, had to tighten on it in order for Pearl to turn around, sit up, and manage a"Yes?". By now, everyone was gathered around her like middle-of-summer tourists around a banjo player coated with gold, only playing when the coins clinked into his overturned hat on the ground.  
The coin here was one of the most decisive things Pearl had said in weeks.  
"Pearl. We can beat the killer at his own game now. I remember his name."  
Now, Pearl was sitting up. She was her whole self now, a self that Steven wheeled around and did his best to sit next to so he wouldn't lose her should the grief chain her underwater again. The clamoring started, and Garnet replied with a sigh. She took a single gauntlet, trying her best to only tap the wall behind her but it still resounding with a series of brute pounds. She took a glance out of the window before beginning.  
"Whenever we fuse, it's very difficult to organize our memories. Think of it like two piles of papers. When we fuse, both of them are scattered around the floor. It's time-consuming to pick those papers up and put them in a single pile. Alternating. I've gotten quicker at it. But it still takes a few days."  
"Well, why couldn't y-"  
Everyone in the room glared at Greg, and he fought the urge to excuse himself and go play guitar in the backyard.  
"I couldn't," resumed Garnet, "come up with the memory any time sooner. Any figment of it. Believe me, I would've told you earlier. With me unfusing more and more often now, there are things to get used to. When Steven was younger, I kept this form to make him comfortable."  
Greg tried to put a hand on one of the arms of his chair, found it was shaking, almost imperceptibly.  
What followed was a blitzkrieg search. A few search terms, and they found his social media page, which was Greg and Pearl’s job to meticulously search through. Even created a few fake social media accounts for good measure, some friends who were allegedly involved in the Methodist church Handley attended, but attended early morning services, taking away any chance of interaction with him. While Greg spent the rest of the evening as Walter Parsons, father of three, the rest of them built off the other information.  
He was clearly involved in the theater- that was the first article they jumped to. Steven physically clenched his teeth to the point that he made an “NNNnnn-” sound before speaking. His daughter’s name was Roseanna. She was in the fifth grade. She had this...this look in her eyes that made Connie shudder. She knew the look of someone whose parents acted more like gods than someone’s mother and father. The look of someone who, at this age, would be more than betrayed now if she were to somehow gain knowledge of what had happened.  
He was active in his church, that was another thing. Was one of the key chaperones in the church’s youth group, got Roseanna a position despite her being too years below the 12-year minimum age. Didn’t have a bad hand at carpentry, according to a list of volunteers during the church’s renovation. Lead a rally in Beach City to elect the current president, a president that Garnet would have to stay fused to face. Helped a dozen people take it to Baltimore, and a hundred to DC. A hundred to DC...it’d happened right under their noses while Steven and Connie were living there, here they were, focusing on human-Gem tensions, and they didn’t even notice…  
Amethyst, had she been a human, would’ve been dipping her writing hand in ice.  
There were a few places where they found his name. Obituaries. Names of dead relatives. That was leverage they weren’t willing to use until much, much later, assuming they had the gall to use it at all. And the last one.  
He’d put his name in the Yellow Pages. Which meant it was in the White Pages.  
Oh, he was dead then. His eyes burned, heart turned into a drum caught in a vice-grip. Dead was the general consensus, and Steven could see it in his eyes now, the same murder Jasper had seen earlier in his life. He jotted down everything himself, even shoving Amethyst over….his phone number, his address, the end of his email that the website gave him… he was dead now.  
Dead.  
Amethyst made a half-gasp, half-whimper. Steven slammed the lid, backed away from her. The shove had forced her entire body against the wall, left her chest wide open and vulnerable to one of the points on the bookshelf. There was a moment of incredible clamoring; the beach seemed to rise sixteen feet . Amethyst gripped Steven’s arm as she exposed the black tank top to the cracks in the gem, running like the tributaries and small bays scattered on Maryland’s mainland, just before the start of Delmarva. Steven could practically see her eyes heave and pulsate in unfettered fear; a tear squeezed out of her eye and, eventually, out of his.  
The cracks settled.  
But there were still marks on her chest. Aggluted cracks, being filled in with crystallic material.  
Steven tried to hoist himself back on his wheelchair as the clamoring finally settled down to a roar. Soon as his feet kicked out, Amethyst yelled, pulled herself into a fetal position.  
So Steven stopped.  
Hoisted himself back in the wheelchair.  
Went out the door  
Into the van.  
Earlier, he thought a little obliviously, he would’ve gone to his childhood room. Stay in there indefinitely, or until his father came in and had a discussion with him. That’s how it always went. He was nineteen. Him and Connie had even talked about what he was going to do when he turned twenty to celebrate another decade. But here he was again, the same child he was then. Such anger, what was he again other than that? Such...anger, he…  
He just sat there. Let the world flow around him. Breathed fire, breathed like a dog. Doors locked. Turned the engine on to drown it out for both himself and everyone in the house. He was kicked out. Isolated.  
Like a dog.  
___  
“Why’d you do it, huh? Why’d you kill my kid”  
Greg saw it. Saw that George knew exactly who he was. Saw the flinching that turned into sadness, saw the hand in the back of his pocket, grab the holster that wasn’t there, long having been tossed into a tangle of bushes that’d cut his arm should he even try to come in and take it. Saw that George felt like a sinner in his church, a feeling that would’ve terrified him had he not been part of the church’s God’s Fighters in His Image, the Methodist branch’s premiere anti-Gem organization. He kept the feeling at unsettled for now. George knew one other thing: Greg hadn’t known what sleep was for the past few nights. George saw there was no fight in him. Even if he wanted to, if he attempted to land a few punches on George, Greg would probably end up unconscious before blood even began to show up on George’s face. There was no fear. And there wasn’t any way George was going to neglect the person above who’d given him life, given him a wife and daughter. Given him a conscience developed enough to destroy the gun.  
And so George blended his way in the crowds.  
This was the way they decided to compromise it. To not make it so overt that they’d found all the info yet; Greg hadn’t even considered taking down any of it yet. Slowly, slowly. Greg would assume two identities: Walter Parsons, his friend who loved ribeye steak as much as he did, and himself, the person George had broken as easily as an ankle. To curb any violence; especially from Steven, any more would result in ten times more from the humans. But to twist his mind until he either told him, he’d be reminded every time he went to church of weight was put on his back that he’d never quite be able to toss off, or both.  
Steven took himself to the edge of the town border, hands rubbing up and down, up and down, updownupdown his arms without the slightest of breezes in the air due to it being relatively far from the ocean.  
Couldn’t they just leave?  
He considered it. Considered it for a very, very long while Lay an elbow on the sign after making sure no one was there, waved in an almost besotted way towards the cars as he thought. Looked at all the license plates. Missouri. Alabama. Arizona. He’d visited all of them and more, even made the trouble to go to Hawaii.  
He could go anywhere.  
Of course, that was one of his perpetual thoughts. Even at sixteen, it was a consideration for him. A coin he always tossed up and down his hand, even if it was a souvenir coin. And the more he sat there on the sign, waving, he realized…  
He realized this was the question that drove him and Connie to DC.  
In DC, people were more tolerant, at least that was how the story went. People were holding pro-Gem rallies there, even peaceful protests to prominent anti-Gem extremists on Steven’s behalf. And while all of this was undoubtedly helpful and would’ve been incredibly, incredibly flattering if he were more egotistical than he already was, there were always the people they were protesting against. Him and Connie still feared for their lives, each and every day. Days came when rocks went through windows, when they had to take the long way home due to report of Gem activists being beaten or worse on the normal route home. And then, there was the day of the shooter, who’d made an attempt on their lives through the window while they were in the apartment…  
He took his wheels in his hands, tried not to fall out as he made his way past the grass.  
Here, there were two things that wouldn’t be anywhere else: locality and his family. Locality afforded him lifetime friends who’d stop at nothing for the safety of Steven’s family, whereas some protestors were virtue signalers, and the vast majority of the rest wouldn’t exactly take a bullet for any of them if the opportunity truly presented itself. And there was his family. His family, they were worth more than all the Gems killed and combined for sale, and if he couldn’t be with them.  
If he couldn’t leave, then at least some of the lower-profile Gems would. Not Lapis or Bismuth or Peridot. Not even Jasper; any relation to him, any at all, and God knows what would happen to them if they began living farther away from him.  
But he could do something, right?  
___  
“I killed someone” was what George said that next Sunday during the next God’s Fighters in His Image meeting.  
He’d say they were a hodgepodge. They wore many hats, doing whatever jobs they could due to it being relatively short handed due to the low population of the town; the chapters in the city were much better off. They’d come from all sorts of places- Georgia and Wisconsin, to name a few. And some of them were even converts. But all of them were fathers of some sort, the youngest one being a father-to-be. A woman almost joined one day...heh, now that was one spectacular day. And all of them looked at him with a mix of agitation and terror, the ones higher-ranking in the group, the ones who could lift more, carry more, run faster and longer, with more agitation than fear.  
“That’s against…” one of the higher-ranking ones coughed. “That’s against Scripture, George. Book of Exodus 20:13 if you want to be specific. You know that, you know.” He looked around, saw the amount of fear growing in the others’ eyes, some of the more observant ones even looking to see if the pistol George discreetly carried around so often on church grounds was still in his Wranglers. “But I won’t condemn you if He won’t. And He won’t, you hear me? No one is below His mercy. We’re all sinners. All sinners in His eyes.”  
Not a soul said “Amen” to that.  
“Who’d you kill?” the most higher-ranking one whispered, putting a hand on George’s shoulder. By now, all the congregation had seemed to sweep around the church like the bristles whirling, whirling, whirling in the one car wash in town that wasn’t owned by a Gem supporter. And now they were gone. “Who was it?”  
“A child” was what everything cried in George to say. But he took a breath. Felt the tears shooting up his lungs, into the notch in between his two clavicles Roseanna loved to poke around when she was a baby, into his throat. But if it was what it took to say what he had to, he did.  
“A Gem.”  
He had to get over the first breath.  
“Her name was Spinel. She threatened the whole town, remember? Spinel.”  
“I knew who she was. I don’t think anyone here can forget. Tell me more, son.”  
Son. Even that bit at him. Bit to a childhood he wouldn’t quite like to remember, pointed to the ever-poignancies of now. “Newspapers didn’t come to my house for a long time, I suppose. That...that bit at me. Last time they came, they told me everything she did. Her name was in there the last time I got it. It was the one where she’d destroyed everything. Or tried to. I didn’t feel safe from then on. Never had, but especially not then. So I figured, fugget it. I’d put my pistol in my car, why don’t I. And I wasn’t looking for her in the theater. But that didn’t stop me from shooting her when she was there.”  
More silence. No “Amen”s. But he could feel the fear from the whole of them brush off of his shoulders, speed over to the ocean and challenge its breezes. Some of the men got a little closer to him, one of them taking out his phone in hopes of writing down the entire story. A sudden realization gripped him; he cringed. Christ, people couldn’t be investigating him now. If they started investigating him now, who knew how much his family would be in danger...what would he have to do this time to make sure none of them were hurt...how many more? It was the only question now that he’d always hit the sack knowing he’d shot a child in the stomach. How many more…  
“Well.” One of the higher-ranking ones, the third or fourth one down, George couldn’t quite remember. Didn’t put a hand on George’s shoulder, but had that expression on his face nevertheless. “You did what you could. You saved your family, didn’t you?”  
He tipped his head toward the window. He wondered why the view of the beach, just in the lower left hand corner, seemed much bigger than it used to be before. Looked back once the feeling crept on his neck that everyone else was watching him wonder and wondering why he was watching.  
“Yes, I did, Brendan. Yes, I did.”  
It was two hours after the meeting that the first punch went onto his face. He knew who’d done it. The broken man, the one he’d taken away his child from. The one who must’ve been there the entirety of the church meeting. A man who’d laid down just as many punches on George as George would if anyone laid a finger on his Roseanna. But it didn’t stop him from dealing back with as much force as he possibly could once he saw Rosanna fold back the window, scream and tremble loudly enough that the crinkles on the curtains quivered back and forth. The first blow, Greg dealt underneath George’s stomach. George’s body tightened with indignation before he landed his punch on Greg’s nose, and left eye, and ribs. Greg spat out red; George’s body tightened this time in terror before he realized he’d landed a punch to his mouth, completely out of his consciousness.  
“Don’t make me do anything worse, now.” He looked towards the curtains and realized Rosanna had gone to tell her mother. He cringed as a blow landed on his sternum, but wasn’t drawn to coughing yet. This guy did have much more powerful people by his side. He had to if he was a Gem supporter, didn’t he? But this was a completely personal vendetta. A vendetta he’d make had the same thing happened to him. “My wife and kid are watching, you see?”  
“You still have a daughter!” Tears burned down his eyes, seared their way down to the asphalt. A successful blow landed to his leg enough for it to bruise, to radiate as much pain as if it were fractured. George went down, cursing.  
His atonement over.  
Greg did a once-over. Trembled. No cameras. He could’ve swore he saw Spinel. Somewhere deep in his head. Covering her mouth, staring at the downed George.  
Her own tears covering her fingers.  
Greg bellowed, something he rarely thought he was capable of and ended with a crack. When the ocean didn’t hear him, he went down into the van and made his way to the Keystone Motel, put on the one EP he’d released on full blast, all windows down. He was thirteen again. He was a horrible father. He was a great father for having avenged one of his own. He was a horrible one for leaving the one he still had. He was a great one- a break for an hour or two, and he’d be back to normal; Steven wouldn’t have to experience any more of his wrath. He was- he didn’t know what he was.  
He didn’t know.  
___  
By the end of April, Greg was gone from the Methodist church. Before anyone had a chance to talk to him long enough to find out who he was or why he was there other than to pretend to be in front of a God he hadn’t prayed to since he was twelve. He’d had what he came for.  
But George didn’t. Didn’t have to tell a soul what’d happened to him, but after an hour, had to tell who.  
“Spinel’s dad. Or the closest one to it.”  
The next day, Garnet helped to extend the fence from the backyard to the rest of the house.  
Even if it was only to give them the feeling of being safe.


	21. Season 7, Part 7: Tranza do Iapa (Continued)

The ships, both in uniform design and in somewhat custom hand shapes, grabbed and sprung around the capitol, its gleaming buildings perpetually being scrubbed by Pearls designed entirely for that purpose. Life continued, in all its abundance, in all its 6 million sentient gems that had grown, robust and fully-formed, from the ground all those millions of years ago. Life continued, and whispered to each other. Did you hear about that Ruby who went in front of the castle? Oh, yes, braver than I’d ever be, braver than I’d ever be, tittered back a slightly higher-ranking Gem, tapping at the tablet-like object that sprung like a gazelle in the front of her forehead to help her make her daily decisions. But as she wandered into another area, she found a dozen Gems gathered about a few miles near the palace, away from any of the other Rubies still recovering from the loss of one of their own, yet still close enough to where the residents who were financially prosperous enough to live that close to the Diamonds could hear. And there was nothing disguising their worry but the perfect slabs of non-sentient quartz, hewn specially by the Diamonds’ own squad of Bismuths out of the layers closer to the core.  
The Diamonds, however, considered little to nothing of this. Although one hundred million had evacuated to Rose’s colony, Kodoros, thus far, the little resources needed were still strung far too far-flung for the nearly six billion that remained on the planet. And the stirrings that were now happening in the street were quieter than a sheath of tumbleweed floating in the nearby desert winds compared to the small conflicts that’d already arisen from the Gems who wanted a caste system back. And ever so often, Yellow Diamond would emerge howling from her chambers to practically beg the Diamonds to bring the caste system back. Jobs were being performed at a much more inefficient rate.  
“Patience,” Blue Diamond would always say, followed by White Diamond’s ever-stately nod. If the moment was right, Blue stroked Yellow’s shoulder before embracing her, using her newfound abilities to do her best and crush the source of Yellow’s pain. “I’m sure they’ll learn, Yellow. Patience.”  
But patience was thinning, thinning faster than the infinitesimal pieces of quartz that sloughed off whenever Bismuths or especially masculine- and outcasted- Pearls and Pebbles were sanding them with microscopic saws. Patience was thinning with the distance from the protestors to the palace. More and more fusions took place as an act of sheer rebellion, or arguably spite, once the bulk of the close to one hundred and forty thousand Gems in the capitol found that Pozne had been in a purely romantic relationship with another Gem.  
“All of this will fade away about Pozne. She’s a martyr, that’s all. There are martyr every day on some planet or another. I’m sure it will-”  
And it was one fusion- a weighty fusion of two former Quartz soldiers, her Peridot, and a Ruby- that first made a hole in the castle walls.  
It was nothing short of chaos for the next thirty seconds, chaos driven by order on mostly White and Yellow's part. They formed a flank in the front to tackle the fusion, while the castle servants scrambled to attend to the Diamonds, inserting themselves like cockroaches, attempting to find a need for assistance when there was none. When they'd gained the upper hand and ripped the fused Gem out of the fusion's chest, the four women, slightly disoriented, scrambled around the quartz-sand floor to avoid the Diamonds, waste air from the desert blowing their hair. White raised her gladokris in the air, its electrified sword's tip reminding Blue of the many times her guards had to goad dissenters into submission. Except this was more than capable of shattering five or more gems at a time…  
"White!"  
But, as White would point out hours, days, even weeks afterward, it wasn’t necessary to shatter five of them. All the rest had escaped. The sentinels set up at the ends of the roads would set after them like the wolves down in Kodoros, or the ships after a mineral deposit that was somehow found on the now virtually barren planet. But as for this Quartz, White raised the electrotip and plunged it into the Quartz’s chest, out of her back. Instead of shattering, she released a blood-curdling scream as her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her entire body was paralyzed, then poofed.  
Before anyone could do anything to stop it, White took the perfect quartz in her hands and crushed it until it wasn’t much thicker than the grains of sand outside.  
Yellow stood by, maybe tapped down her weapon once or twice, looked around to see if all of the cameras had been disabled in time, if there were any who’d watched what happened. The news that the Quartz was one would be implication enough about what White had done, but explicit evidence… explicit evidence was enough to begin a war the scale of what happened with Kodoros. As the thoughts were rumbling about in her head, she felt a sharp pain in her chest and fell back, knocking over a small statue in the plaza.  
All she could hear was Blue’s yelling before she heard a ringing in her ears. From then on, it was all she could do to clutch Blue’s hand lingering on her chest.  
When the ringing stopped and the world hit her head with a jarring uppercut, she realized two things: that she was still existing- she hadn’t plunged into the horrible void she thought her soldiers dived into when they were shattered- and that White was standing, stiller than Yellow’d even been herself, near where the lightpad was.  
But in any event, she was still here. Still existing, still to battle and to plan and to rule and to take the billions of her citizens under her wing…  
“Thank…” but instead of any words, she let out a sharp cough that turned the pain in her chest into a fire. Blue immediately put her hand on it, let out a soft, undercurrent, “Luli, shisho, luli….luli, shisho, luli….”, the closest thing the Gems had to “hush”. Yellow let out a groan as she looked down. She wouldn’t be able to ask Blue for a damage report now; that she’d have to investigate for herself. She took Blue’s hand in her own, let her thumb stroke the back of Blue’s hand to coax it off.  
Her gem was beyond cracked. There was a hole in it, a small cavern. Whatever had hit her had been a projectile, or even a Gem determined to end Yellow’s life regardless of if it cost her her own. But the good news, beyond anything, was that the cavern wasn’t growing at a rapid rate, as it usually would. The technology and the servants inside the castle ensured her of that, she realized, as she felt a clammy sensation around her forehead and revealed a colossal towel soaked in seawater, undoubtedly having to be carried over by five or six of her Gems. Despite how painful it was, the fact that it remained stagnant was more innovative than most things she could think of. As she turned her shoulder towards Blue and winced, she even let the possibility open up in her mind that she could recover…  
She could recover. She let that thought guide her into light.  
She couldn’t get any words out, but she assumed that Blue and White, along with all the servants in the castle under the employment system established after Steven came and turned the caste system upside down, were doing everything in their power to do what was best for Yellow. Her knowledge spent on that, she grunted with an edge to it as she tried to stand up. Blue half-yelled this and that, but she walked over to the writing tablet, her vision turning black on the edges; Yellow gripped the edge of the table, groaning as the pain rode through her. Nevertheless, she grabbed the tablet by the time Blue reached her, and she managed to write down one question. “How did this happen?”  
Blue looked to the right towards the lightpad, and it was only then that White had any thought of walking back, the lights around her designed to reflect the natural facets in her ancient dress glowing white. She looked back towards Yellow, let her eyes falter as she took ahold of her hand. “We’re trying to find out what it was, too. But shortly after you fell on the ground, White found rubble that was mostly carbon, electrified by the looks of it.”  
A ship. Someone had driven an entire dam ship into her chest. Of course. With the new controller system engineering the ship to go up to 600 miles an hour, someone had thought to use it as a projectile. Someone, Yellow thought in horror, who was sore over Pozne, who was even more sore over the regulations still placed on fusion. And someone, Blue thought in horror, was still on that ship. The shards would be too small to find in all that rubble, but if she knew her people, if she knew her investigation team, who’d by now be setting up a temporary alliance, they’d find out who it was soon enough…  
She fumbled for the tablet again, let Blue steady her hands into it as her lips brushed against Yellow’s cheek for a moment or two before White could see. “Call off all N-96 Ulatvenia on all transporters until further notice. I don’t want them weaponized.”  
Blue smiled, and that alone was comfort enough for Yellow to let her head slowly, slowly drop back. “That’s what White first thought of doing.” But all abrupt, she looked as White still lingered on the lightpad. “White? Myla…” the Gem word for “dear”, used for everyone by Blue and everyone else for their clandestine partners… “you’ve been standing there for the longest time. Whatever’s the matter?”  
White could do little more than let out a breath that had crushed her chest more than the ship had Yellow’s.  
“Where…”  
And that was all she could say before she formed a flank beside Blue and Yellow. She took a look at Yellow’s chest, took a slight grimace, and let her eyes flit back towards Blue.  
“Where’s Spinel? She’s been gone for twenty minutes now…”  
They shifted. Shifted Yellow to the special portion of the castle specifically designed for occasions such as this one to be an infirmary, shifted the tablet to the bottom of the stairs, leaving Yellow destitute, shifted the debris around the hole in the wall the Bismuths were repairing. In an instant, the two of them were at the lightpad, the both of them still smelling the trace bits of singed air around the device, an obvious sign of its use. Yellow had taken away the device’s usage history back during the Gem War in order to further any plans for espionage; White made a laugh, half-insane, half-sarcastic, and bantered to Blue about how she’d “take herself to Yellow’s room and give her a sharp blow on the face with a gauntlet.”  
“White, if we cannot reason for ourselves where she went, perhaps we can’t afford to reason like ourselves. If we were Spinel, where could we have possibly gone?’  
White leaned against the wall, fumbled with one of the impeccably made flecks of mica extracted from the desert, perfectly non-sentient, that came with her helmet. Blue couldn’t help but perk up, at least a little, when she saw the gears turn in White. “She couldn’t have possibly been to the Garden. That much I know. And other than here, there’s only one other place where she could’ve been.”  
___  
The Omnitransmitter was left in the closet in the guest bedroom, buried underneath Spinel’s fall dresses. Oblivious to the waves, the tourists, the jingles played by the carnival games, the wildlife that scuttled its way up and down the shoreline, oblivious to the moon and stars. The transmission went once, twice that hour. Nobody responded; Steven was still in his wheelchair, still in a pitiful condition for a long journey, let alone should any physical conflicts come. He was half-human; this was rammed into his head more than anything these days.  
But it still got enough messages that it moved, ever so slightly, to the precipice, to the closet’s carpet. By the end of March 29th, forty-seven messages clogged its feed and moved it two inches towards the edge.  
Morning came on the thirtieth. The tides rose. Only two things were constant in it all, morning and the waves. One inch towards the edge.  
And it was that morning that Greg took the tuft of Pearl’s hair in his hand, took her shoulder and shook it slightly, waited there on the couch until she woke up.  
“I got breakfast.” It was only then that Pearl realized how swollen the eyebags were. “Afterwards, I’m gonna fix the van.” Not daring to ask if she wanted to help- anything that would put her on the spot, even at this point, would ensure she didn’t get up that morning. Although she did nod, even got up; Greg watched in awe as she fixed a small batch of pancakes and even garnished a little whipped cream on the top before she half-collapsed into one of the barstools, head in her arms.  
For the first time in a long while, Greg could hear the sound of laughter in the wind. Kids, little kids, that he could see from his house, that’d braved their way into the waves despite them only being ten or so degrees above freezing. Such was the ocean in March. Him and Rose first visited the beach then, even before he scrounged together every cent from every gig and carwash and bought the house…  
He chased it away. Kissed the top of her head. “Attagirl, attagirl.”  
After a tap on her shoulder fifteen minutes later, they were both off. As he stepped out to the van, Greg felt an aching in his joints; now that his son had gone off and flown, the same way Greg dreamed he would all this time, he wasn't around to help him with things this relatively trivial. But he'd at least shown Pearl the ropes, shown Pearl the full beast of it. Every rotor, every gasket was tucked in its own place somewhere in that mind of hers Ruby, Sapphire, and Amethyst said goodbye to him and Pearl as they huddled around the table, discussing the date of the first official protest now that Pearl was somewhat "recuperated" according to Sapphiret.  
A half an hour of just him, the waves, his work, and the solemn thud-pats, thud-pas of tourists wandering nearby and occasionally asking him for help. The hardest thing he had to think about for that hour was what size drive he needed for the torque wrench in order to help get the nuts off in the undercarriage. Simplicity at its finest. And he could even see an expression on Pearl that he hadn't seen in a very, very long time. Serenity. Even if it wasn't perfect serenity. Whether he was sharing it off of her or she him, he didn't know. But he practically saw something weightier than even he could carry slide off of Pearl with each minute that passed.  
Another half an hour. "Whoo, Pearl, looks like this is about to get messy! Can you get some paper towels...you can just get them from the storage room, it's alright if you can't summon them right now…"  
Simplicity came again when she delivered them to him. It was raw, primal this time. He cursed under his breath as something warm and res- undoubtedly fresh oil- dropped onto his hair, which was getting shorter and shorter with each cut he had to make. "Did I do it too early? And for all the times for the nut to stop workin' and to start leakin'..."  
Soon as he came out, he was frozen. A slight breeze came on by, but if he knew of it at all, he didn't say it. Pearl stood, paler than normal, just as frozen as he was. Eyes a little wider than normal, but otherwise staring into the neighbor's yard despite the fact that there wasn't anything there. Gripping her arm.  
Greg took it in her arm; winced the same time she did. "Aw, jeez, I'm sorry…"  
Sliced open. Almost from top to bottom. But, thank the Lord, nothing too deep. And nothing that would require stitches. Now it was just a matter of keeping the bleeding down. Now it was just a matter of getting the paper towels she brought. Maybe get some bacitracin. It always worked on Steven, so-  
What the hell was he talking about? Keeping the bleeding down?! She was a Gem, for Chris' sake! Gems didn't bleed, either they shattered into a million pieces, never to be seen again, nothing even to bury, or they weren't! Did one of the Diamonds do this? He knew they were more prone to war than anyone he'd met, but this? Did George do this? Hel, did Marty do this? And how would either of them know where he lived? He needed to-  
He wrapped the wound in the towels, hastily. Took her by her free hand and rushed her inside like a sled driver to his dogs. "We gotta- Ruby! Sapphire! Amethyst! She's bleeding!"  
Amethyst was the first to come. She was by no means adopting any of the traits Spinel had or Pearl seemed to have now, but she liked to think human culture was more ingrained into her than into Sapphire or Pearl, or even Ruby. She took four or so seconds to take off the paper towels and yelp, but before long, she was putting them back in and applying pressure. Greg had a thought come like a kick to the diaphragm of what would've happened had Amethyst been there when Spinel had been shot…  
"Spinel." The whole of it hit him like the van he'd abandoned. "She could've cut herself too, right?"  
Two nods, Garnet's somehow more grim. "Before we do anything, we need to stabilize her. She already looks somewhat pale."  
Greg chuckled. "Don't worry. Humans have a lot more than you think." He cringed, felt the tears lick the back of his eyes, almost kicked himself. "We've just gotta sit her down...can someone please get the back door…"  
Three minutes later, Greg had the story- the sharp corner on the workbench was the culprit. Six minutes later, Peridot was on the phone, Amethyst having had consulted her due to her having "the most know how I've ever seen about these things." Peridot knew the gravity of the situation and was on her way over to the lightpad, even if Pearl hadn't quite had the chance to fall asleep yet. Greg frantically finished the repairs; Peridot offered help just seconds too late. Once she knew of their predicament, she couldn't hide the perplexity on her brows. "I have an idea of what's going on here, but I need more information first. And to do that, I need sampling." She looked at the wound, shoved in what looked like a hybrid of a silicon chip and a needle. Pearl had the gumption to glare at her, something that gave Greg almost more hope than when she made the pancakes. Peridot left briefly to analyze the blood, came back with a little glint to her eye that was a full-blown fire when Steven had first met her while she was serving under Jasper.  
“Ninety-six percent hemoglobin, four percent inorganic material. And look at that! Traces of Zemsta islepy plants!” When Sapphire’s eyes wandered almost towards the sky instead of at Peridot, she feigned desperation. “Wh-wh-what I mean is, in humans, inorganic material should be zilch. Nada. Nothing. And in Gems, I mean, obviously, it fundamentally must be completely organic. And it looks like the plant that Spinel must’ve been near while she was in the garden.”  
“What’re you getting at?” Amethyst this time; for the first time, Greg noticed how decrepit she’d gotten over those past weeks. God, what had he done to her? How many hours had she spent alone, typing agendas on the kitchen table and emailing petitions for gun reform in the state of Maryland, while Greg was absent with Pearl?  
“At first, I thought it was nothing. But seeing as this is Pearl we’re talking about and not a human…” she darted her eyes towards the road, towards Coastal Highway peering out to the left. “We should probably go inside.”  
There was something that tensed in Peridot as soon as she came in. Soon, Pearl and Greg blinked, became jarred from the mess around the house instead of adjusted. Ruby and Sapphire had spent most of their time, almost completely unwittingly to everyone else, cleaning, and while this had brought both of them considerable amounts of peace, it almost instantly wore off after them being overwhelmed. Eventually, they’d learned to let the mess come, and they were satisfied with what they could clean at their own pace.  
She sat down, asked for some jablinky, stat- chewing the sugar crystals crushed in the apple cider gave her time to think. As she chewed her first mouthful, she whipped out a set of three pens and a somehow flawless three hundred page spiral notebook. “I have a theory as to why her blood is like this. Greg. You know her best out of everyone here, right? Her habits, where she goes every day, what she eats and drinks?¨  
“Right.” He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel a slight chill; this was the first time he’d ever been able to say that with conviction.  
“And she hasn’t been exposed to any new substances lately, hasn’t she?” The scribbling-jotting began, her gears turned. Amethyst looked on from the couch, pulling a blanket over herself, hiding her ear-to-ear smile behind it.  
“Substances? Um...no, not that I’ve been thinking of. Not unless there’s any under our house.”  
Peridot jabbed the tip of her pencil to her chin, turning redder than the shell of a freshly-cooked Chesapeake blue crab when she realized some of the ink was staining her chin, Amethyst laughing hysterically. Pearl could’ve shot a glimpse at her that could kill, but only sighed and put her hands on her temples before moving it to her pearl.  
“Well, I, uh, erm…” she disarmed the pen. “There is some of the poison Spinel took with her two years ago with the injector, obviously. But that distributed in a perfectly even pattern underneath the house, meaning that Amethyst, Ruby, and Sapphire should be affected. Pearl...you haven’t felt hunger or thirst lately, have you?”  
“I...wouldn’t know how that feels, although she told me-” Nothing. Everyone knew they’d get nothing after that.  
“Pearl, when’s the last time you ate or drank anything?”  
“New Year’s,” Greg volunteered for her. “And if she’d ever thought about sneaking anything, well, I’d bet I’d be the first to know.”  
“Then you definitely haven’t felt it. Alright, now, just to make sure, I need all of you I just mentioned to cut yourselves with a kitchen knife from Greg’s-”  
“Whoa, whoa! Who said that was necessary?! I mean, there’s gotta be some better way…”  
“If there was anything else you have in mind to quickly draw blood-”  
“...the chip! The thing you put into Pearl’s arm!”  
“I like your thinking. Maybe you oughta join me sometime the next time I investigate something like this. Maybe even join some organization or another.”  
“Yeah, but I think the car wash and taking care of everyone here is en-” He paused. Fiddled with his hair, found three or four in his hand after barely touching it. Excused himself to the bathroom for a few minutes once he felt the pairs of eyes at first drifting, and then slamming onto him like a bluster in a blizzard.  
Peridot wasted no time; she went to her house and back, bringing along the portable testing kit. As she figured, impossible to even inject the other two; the holograms ensured it. But she did it again with Pearl to make sure. The hemoglobin was up by three hundred thousandths of a decimal place, but she brushed it off, thinking it had more to do with the machine and less with Pearl’s physiology.  
“Hmm. Well, there’s only one way this can go, then.”  
Sapphire couldn’t help but grip onto Ruby’s shoulder with her non-dominant hand while Ruby remained ever consciously unsure. Greg was dead still; Pearl let her gaze shift into the horizon, into the battering ram that was the waves. Amethyst was the only one who ever dared to ask anything.  
“Where?”  
“We’ve gotta go.”  
“Go where?”  
Peridot let out a breath heavy enough to push her pen back into her pack.  
“I haven’t been living under a rock. I know for a fact that I can collect Spinel’s blood, too.”  
___  
There was no chaos in any of it. Not even a brief call to Steven, who by now was holding a clandestine video conference with the governor of Kansas, half-begging her for aid, half-upturning her heartstrings from the ground and spinning them around in perfect circles the way he’d learned to since he settled down in Washington DC after his tour around the country. Nothing except a, “Pearl, I’m not sure if you want to come, this might be too much for you” and the sound of Pearl retreating upstairs to one of the rooms that belonged to one of her lost children or another.  
But theree was a solemness, almost eerie, to the point where some of the people in the house questioned if Ruby and Sapphire had become Garnet again. Neither one of them spoke; one of them held on to the other, asked the others if they needed anything, and were the first to leave the lightpad. Had Greg not busied himself with packing to keep himself sane, he would’ve noticed that Ruby was pale enough for him to consider fixing up a hotdog for her. When he was done, he stood in the doorway. Amethyst took a breath that could be seen by Greg, stepped outside, and Amethyst and Peridot were his only companions on the lightpad.  
With April, time had turned. Plants formed on the land like moss to trees, yet the new influx of life to replace the loss of one created a disparity that was only solved by silence. The moon, the sun, they were constant as ever. Something everyone could delight in to some extent. Even the birds and various mammals were still throughout the area, albeit there was no doubt that somewhere nearby they were courting and creating the way they did every year. The Moon and Sun Goddesses, Garnet would’ve said, were intertwined. The vernal equinox, no doubt.  
With all the new life, thorns had already developed in the shrine, but it was nothing that couldn’t be held back by a few machete-like strokes of Amethyst’s whip. Black sand spattered onto his boots, but it didn’t stop his gaze from shifting forward. Towards where Ruby and Sapphire were, already unearthing the lump of dirt they’d created that previous month. Didn’t stop him from sprinting-  
They’d already finished the first half. But Greg, Kobalt shovel already in hand, stepped up to them; once the pair saw him, they parted and sat off on a boulder built nearby for contemplation, Ruby peering over and watching. He struck, struck, struck, struck once for each memory, struck a hundred times, a thousand, the fire burning in his arms, the dirt taunting him, spraying into his eyes…  
And there she was.  
There she was, completely intact. She could’ve been sleeping in her bed back at home, eyes shut like cherry blossoms before they open up and hands folded over her stomach like that. With all the blood underneath them, she wasn’t angelic, as they’d often say in the movies he’d watched and the obituaries he’d been exposed to, but she was his own all the same. Had his own desire for tranquility, but the same zest he’d had when he was her age, all captured at once. Her arms were still now, but her elbows were cocked off to the sides, too, as if at the prodding of Greg’s shovel, she’d gently wake up and stretch out her arms in waiting for him to pick her up and take her home. Her pigtails had meshed into the dirt, creating a net of pink and brown. Brown and red near her middle, even though most of it had been absorbed by the dirt. She’d loved the dirt, you know, thought Greg as his entire arm over his shoulder shook. I was the only one who knew, but she loved the dirt. Would play in it for hours. She was embarrassed. She’d always get her dress stained. ..  
“Greg. Greg, I’m here.”  
. His entire world, jarred. But not quite conscious enough to where he did anything other than flinch, almost to the point of dropping his shovel on his little Spinel and- her body. If he didn’t say it to himself now, he never would. Not at the month-long point. Why was he so behind? Why? Her body.  
It was Ruby, needle in her left hand, covering her gem, a small vial with a vacuum-creating lid in the other. But the jarring was still conscious enough to where, like before, he didn’t notice how much color had left her. How much concern she’d evoked out of Sapphire, regardless of how inexperienced he considered himself to be with relationships such as theirs, even if he did love Randy before.  
It was all he could do to nod numbly, to sit himself down by the border next to where Sapphire and Peridot had gravitated towards each other. Peridot was mumbling something about the hemoglobin concentration and how it could possibly impact the structural soundness of other gems’ crystal lattices, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was staring out towards the forestry just like Sapphire was. To close his eyes, to mutter to no one in particular to wake him up when it was over. He was a child again, he didn’t mind. His last thought was of how him being a child helped to bring it back where it was lost- whatever that meant now. He was asleep in a matter of minutes.  
Without a doubt, a result of staying up all those nights with Pearl, Peridot thought. But before she could think any more of the matter, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Ruby. For the first time, someone other than Sapphire noticed how pale she was.  
But as soon as she stepped away from the body, a new hint of grey had seemed to take over her face. Her eyes slightly wide, mouth the slightest bit agape. Arms trembling, but not enough to have stirred anything in her hands should they have been there. And in that instant, Peridot knew, with a slight shudder, that Ruby was nothing but a shell. Her face had been turned into a plastery-dull cloud, looking all at once with both utter horror and utter shame. It took until Sapphire tapped her on the shoulder for her to look at her, let alone get any of the grey off of her face. It was a look of dull agony, Peridot thought. She didn’t even feel the full vial in her hand until it slid to the end and nearly fell out.  
All that blood had...  
“Ruby, I’m sorry. I…” That was all Peridot could think of saying. Who in her right mind would’ve done what she did? Even with Ruby’s internal strength, she was turned into this. Something she never dreamed of turning anyone into, even for a few minutes. She put a hand to her arm, but instantly took it back. Looked down on the ground. Slowly, very slowly, Ruby sat down on the boulder to keep her legs from shaking.  
A butterfly with intricate black-and-white stripes and spots, almost cow-like, flew in front of her face.  
“Agh”, cried Ruby as she swung at it. The motion uncovered her eyes, revealed two of the thinnest tears everyone except Amethyst had seen. She paused. A bird of unknown origin warbled in the distance. A breeze blew over them, and she tucked her arm back in, went over it twice to make sure her head was buried in it.“Shoo .Shoo, you damed thing. Shoo.”  
____  
Pearl lay, crumpled, almost, across the beachfront. Still shaking. Whatever bravado she’d gained over the past month seemed to only be an illusion. And she’d done so well… she chuckled. The voice she scolded herself with was the exact same she’d used to scold Spinel, Steven, Amethyst…  
She was walking around, too. She’d at first made her way down the stairs when the horrible thud happened; on instinct, primal memories springing up from the war that seemed to never come up until she was feeling this way, sprung up. Equally on instinct, she clutched her staff, swung it once or twice in the air, world opening and closing like a rubber funnel being squeezed. And once the sensation had gone away, once the assault of memories stopped, she’d even been able to investigate the source.  
It was in Spinel’s bedroom.  
She paused, teetering on the edge of the doorway, a single tear making its way down to the carpet. Would it be too taxing for her to do this? And if so, then how could she live with herself knowing that there could’ve been an intruder in her house, and she’d stood by and done nothing? And if the intruder was destroying Spinel’s things…  
She took one hand to the doorknob. Took three pursed breaths, as if the poison had given her a one-centimeter wide windpipe.  
And opened the door.  
No noises. No one was there. But in an instant, she was assaulted with every memory from before. The shell collection. The way her dresser was chipped to the left after one of her stretching escapades, one of her first introductions to… to pain, and...the little stool to the right that she’d use as a block to dance on whenever she practiced her Charleston…  
She heard a second noise then. One that was milder, but still sent a jolt of fear ardent enough to send her whole body into a flinch. A buzzing noise. Did one of them leave their phones up there? Was that all? She laughed, but there wasn’t much of anything to it, and it ended with a bereft sound in between a wheeze and a sigh before she opened the closet door.  
More dread came, but only enough to make her feel as if her head were being washed by the hottest temperature possible from the shower water. No. Not the outline of the phone. More like a square, with at first not appearing to have any buttons but, if one squinted hard enough, they’d find a trackpad with dozens of possible combinations that could possibly be translated into buttons of their own. Using this, she opened the Omnitransmitter’s call history and got the hell out of Spinel’s room, fled her way down to the bottom of the stairs- not quite the couch. A total of six to seven thousand missed messages, usually to settle a dispute on some planet or another, something that would require Steven not being confined to his wheelchair, which wouldn’t be a remote possibility until May.  
But at the top of them were about a dozen. Directly from the Diamond Empire, they were given much higher consideration above all the other messages, them having the ability to last for decades without being tossed in the device’s automatic deletion system.  
Oh, God. How could they have possibly known about what happened?! And what sort of repercussions could this have? Could it mean...could it mean war? Everything the Crystal Gems had been through, an entire army, being laid waste by a simple bullet? Her heart was gripped by this, tossed back and forth.  
No, she thought then. I must be going crazy. There’s no way they could no, right? They perceive time differently- Spinel was with us for a relatively short time, so there can’t be any possibility of them knowing due to their differentiated perception of time, right? Although it had at least three or four opportunities to, the pearl in her forehead hummed in thought. That’s it. I’ll call Steven about it. He’ll resolve it, won’t he?  
With the vast majority of what she could muster, she called up Steven, not even noticing how she’d grabbed one of Spinel’s Sunday dresses that the Omnitransmitter had fallen on in the closet. The call directed to voicemail. Good, she thought. So he is resolving this.  
She proceeded to squeeze the dress, again without being aware. “Hello? Steven? This is Pearl. The Diamonds, they’ve tried to contact you. I’m not sure what they want. And that’s...that’s all. Goodbye. I miss you, you know. Won’t you come and visit? Tell me when’s a good time for you, I’m sure I won’t be busy then. I love you. Stay safe, alright? And don’t go fighting any giant creatures from anywhere beyond Proxima Centauri.” She let herself smile, made sure it fell away after half a second.  
“Again, I love you. That’s all.”  
That was all.  
She wasn’t sure how to describe herself. She was new now; that much she knew. But what was she? Was she braver now? More resilient? If she was any of those things, she wouldn’t have flinched, let alone ran to the back as fast as her two now sand-buried feet could take her. Was she...normal? No, that was too obvious. Was she more motherly now?  
She didn’t know. She didn’t know now, as she finally saw the dress in her hands. Yellow. Intended for Easter, which was now happening two weeks from now. With little sequins Spinel had learned to stitch on herself. She felt a wave come in the backyard, come into the house, break her in half, and spread her like broken glass all over the asphalt on Coastal Highway. And when she was brought back and the tide came back in, she felt her hands wet. Noticed how many tears were on them.  
That was the most important thing she’d learn from Rose. She’d never be alright, no matter how often she’d tell herself that. But she’d be her own person, she’d stay intact through all the years that would go by.  
That was her constant. Her Northern Star. She jumped to the air and took hold of it. Let it become a part of her as she clenched the Sunday dress more tightly now.  
And that was all she needed to know.  
___


	22. Season 7, Chapter 7, Part 3: Tranza do Japa (Continued)

Steven was indeed resolving it. In fact, he was resolving it in more ways than Pearl could handle at the time. More than he thought he could handle.  
When the Omnitransmitter failed, the Diamonds had sent a Diamond Communicator from their lightpad to Beach City’s main lightpad. The debris had been, for the most part, cleaned, but not enough for any of them to notice the Diamond Communicator for a few hours. Nevertheless, a Ruby did notice it as she was about to take a trip for the upcoming spring equinox ceremony. One of Eyeball’s somewhat forced companions due to her having served with Eyeball under Jasper, she’d taken the long route in order not to stir her ire for Steven. She’d deliver it to his house, as he was gone helping Amethyst make the final preparations for the first official protest for a few days later. And had it not been for him being in his wheelchair, the communicator would’ve been crushed instead of dented. Oh, the little things Steven did, he thought, that stopped war…  
“Please” was the word in most of the messages, which Steven took an hour to listen to, but could only tell Connie that he skimmed through nevertheless. “Please bring her back. Or tell her where she is. We miss Spinel. We miss you. Why don’t you come and visit? Please. Tell her where she is.”  
So Steven almost immediately enlisted Connie’s help, made a flowchart for what story they’d tell the Gems, dedicating only an hour or so to it so they wouldn’t anger them further. Even enlisted Jasper and Peridot’s help over two phone lines running at the same time, with their strategic experience and them knowing the Diamonds as well as they did. After a half an hour, his head was swarming with ideas to the point to where he had to rest on Connie’s shoulder, but as she stroked his hair, he made the mandatory run-through again should he forget; after this, it was up to him to press the button on the Diamond Communicator and respond.  
Firstly, they’d shake off the Diamonds’ attention from Earth entirely. Doing that would be their bes chance at keeping Earth safe, at least for now. As far as what Steven and the others around him knew, the Diamonds had every armament possible to destroy Earth, even if they were going through a resource shortage recently, which prompted them to send the statement that’d ultimately encouraged all the hundreds of thousands of Gems to come and seek citizenship in Earth countries. Bring up how Pink Diamond had felt during her time of captivity there, eear at the Diamonds’ heartstrings even if it was a little too roughly. Bring up how she felt the need to escape. Hel, they’d even compiled a list from Pink Pearl...not the Pearl Steven had grown up with and been held by as a baby, that would’ve destroyed her… of all the places Pink Diamond loved to go to on Homeworld. The Diamonds had even kept this further buried down, had kept a copy of all the destinations in a room they kept sacred, dedicated entirely to Pink. No matter how many feelings Steven was tortured by every time he thought of it, the list was in there, and right in Spinel’s reach. All that luck would have to do in order for the Diamonds to delay any attack on Earth by a significant period of time was to keep them from going into Pink’s room and finding the form still there. And even then, who wasn’t to say that Spinel took notes, not wanting to damage the original paper?  
And if this didn’t work, he had at least five plans laid out.  
If he couldn’t convince them that Spinel had gone anywhere other than Earth, he could simply say that he didn’t see her anywhere, although this would backfire due to the Diamonds searching in another part of Earth, somewhere where it was harder for Steven to monitor their actions. He’d have to come up with explanations. Something that would take the blame off of Earth. She was hit by a car, it was an accident- no, that was stupid; in the Diamonds’ eyes, humans were incapable of accidents that happened to so much as loosen a thread on a Gem’s dress. He could even frame a different planet if he wanted to, but then he’d be sacrificing the lives of potential billions. Could he frame a planet with little to no life at all, and then set up a scene with a too-adventurous Spinel having explored and then dying after a rogue piece of debris smashed right into her Gem? He didn’t know. Didn’t know if he had the mental or even physical wherewithal to set up something that elaborate; he compulsively locked and unlocked the wheels on his wheelchair that wasn’t due to come off until the middle of May. Didn’t know if he had the time. Or, if all else failed, admitted that he didn’t know where Spinel was and start a feigned journey to search for her. Lead them on a wild goose chase that would take months, years, and then God knew what he’d do if they got tired of it....  
Should he leave it to someone else...  
Before another thought sprang up, he was asleep under Connie’s arm. Very lightly. So much as her whispering could wake him up.  
He had a dream. Most of the time, he was worried to have them due to the fact that since he was sixteen, his subconscious tended to project onto electronics. But it had calmed down since then; besides, he at times went into a dream like this it he went to sleep as peacefully as he did. He remembered nothing. Experienced everything. Nothing but a full sense of grey-white, a world he'd never known. Was this what it would be like when he died? He didn't know...if he died, he didn't know what anyone on this whole planet would do without-  
A screaming buzz from the Diamond Communicator. He was being hailed.  
The fatigue was still dripping out of him, his head still a flaming ball of gas in a murk-filled pool. But he had to hail it. Either that, or there was the risk of the entire planet being destroyed at the whim of Yellow or perhaps White Diamond. All of the plans lay in his head, fuzzy. He tried to string them on his arm, but they flopped back to the floor. Still, he could remember enough of them to choke out something.  
“Yeah?” he began. “What’re y’callin’ for?” Okay, good. He could still put in some subtlety.  
“Steven.” Yellow Diamond. Even with only the video feature, Steven could still see that she was reared up to her full height- he could even see one of the castle servants in the background, barely big enough to be visible, finishing up her work scrubbing one of the castle’s magnificently huge tiles. “I don’t think any of us could’ve delayed this call any longer. Where’s Spinel?”  
“Erm…” Sht. A brick in the wall, a nail in the coffin hif he wasn’t very, very careful with the next words that came out. The stress came as sweat, a storm, beaded on his forehead. “Alright, let me get Connie in here, alright? She’d be mad if she knew I was talking to you guys without her.”  
He heard the sound of White and Yellow quarreling with how abruptly Yellow had talked to him, but Steven didn’t keep it in mind. His entire body trembled as it made its way into the wheelchair, although he’d more than used it enough to know exactly the pattern to enter into it with.  
From there, all it took was a glimpse of Steven to the bottom of the stairs where Connie was, face paler than the moon above, and a half-yelped, “It’s the Diamonds.”  
Connie was sprinting now. By the time the both of them were gathered around the Diamond Communicator, they’d briefly rehearsed what they were going to say to the Diamonds, although the flow char they’d spent hours working on lay neglected on the living room table. But it still took everything in Connie for her to release this level of spontaneity. And spontaneity, even with all their laid-out plans, was what was going to save the planet in the long run.  
She took a breath, hoped it wasn’t deep enough for the Diamonds to question. “We haven’t seen her here. If she used the lightpad, then maybe she may have gone out to the capitol. Seen some sights, that sort of thing.” She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from talking.  
A scoff from Yellow. “And what, have come back? She’s already been gone for fifteen minutes; who’s to say she hasn’t run off by now? And we can’t send out a search party for her like usual; we’re a little too strained to- ah- as you may know, thanks to the resource shortage that we sent all the Gems over there for, we…” she faced to the side. Only then did Steven and Connie notice out the window what looked to be a group of guards attempting to stifle a group of rage-filled Quartzes. And a fusion, Steven pointed out.  
He could see the dread built up in his wife’s eyes, those same dark eyes he fell in love with all those years ago. But she was Connie, and if Connie would do anything, it was to turn that dread into action.  
“What’s going on?” Her voice was inquisitive with a hint of demand, not shaking or alarmed like Steven would be. God, he loved her. Even if this whole thing was somewhat of a game to bolster “unity between humans and Gems”, he loved her so.  
It was Yellow’s turn for the sweat to rise on her brow, but Blue was quick to jump. “I’m so sorry we had to contact you in this state. We’ve been suffering from....conflict recently. It’s…not going to be all that severe, so far, it’s just contained to the Capitol, but God knows what will happen, this is why I leave these things up to Yellow and White…”  
“We just…” White sighed. “We just need answers now as much as you do. We’ll...look around the Capitol. We’ll even do it ourselves if we have to.”  
That was all? None of the flow charts? None of the plans laid out before? Even Connie looked at Steven, this time with frustration.  
The call ended.  
The call ended, and it was all the two of them could do to sit there. For Connie, it was realizing that the crisis they were speaking of could’ve been much more severe than they were letting on. It could turn into...it could turn into war, stretching across dozens of planets, wiping out billions of live and livelihoods, even stretching its spiked and spindly fingers all the way out to Earth- she couldn’t think of it anymore, at least not as on her own as she did. She turned to Steven.  
He rocked forward in his wheelchair, let his hands cover his forehead, cursed, paused for ten more seconds.  
“We didn’t have to bring up Mom, honey. We didn’t have to say a word about her.”  
Connie had gotten tremendously closer to Steven over these past few months. She wasn’t as religious as the amount of traditional Hindu festivals she went to said she was; their recent attempts to become vegetarian were only based on Steven borderline sobbing after watching a documentary on meat processing. But over those months, she’d seen a sort of glory she hadn’t before. For the first time, she truly knew her husband in the deepest sense of the word. Cleaned him, knew the little nose twitches he’d have when he tried to walk, knew the amount of determination in every fiber. And she knew now that he was just as frustrated as she was.  
Even if he was, more than anything, terrified.  
_____  
A low, dull, drying throb crawled all around Peridot. Channeled out all across Little Homeworld.  
It was a sect that nearly every human standing around on the outskirts of their sect had despised, or at least swore to one of their family members that they’d never move there, even if they were a Gem. But of the two and a half thousand Gems that lived there, not one of them didn’t notice the reason why. The buildings weren being rebuilt as fast as it should; the asphalt wasn being laid at nearly the rate it should have. Much of the buildings that did exist had cracks like spiderwebs, brought on by a handful of rocks thrown in, and nearly all of them somehow looked from a distance as if they were either lopsided or hopelessly dulled by the sun, overgrown, even if the Gems living there had spent every free second of their time improving it. Most interactions with humans ended with a combination of spit on the Gems ’shoes, a slur shoved into their faces, or, if they were unlucky, a fist with it. There were a chosen few occurrences to where another human lashed back with just as much vehemence as virtue, but those happened much too few and far between. And the passing of a fence meant an influx of signs. One protest had happened already. But words, endless words, shot into Peridot’s eyes. “Prezmoc”, “Pistola”, “Niespradvely”, “Violent”, “Pistol”, “Unfair.” And each day as she left the Gem sect to work a few part-time, menial jobs in one of the nearby marine biology laboratories, she approached the last one as it blared Gem for “We are all one”.  
Are we? she thought to herself, as each day the prices on building materials grew higher and higher in the local stores, as more and more businesses suddenly felt the urge to use their supposed refusal rights. Are we really?  
Dawn came on April Fool´s, shot a beam through the window smack-dab into Peridotś eye. It was alright, she supposed; she didn’t have a need for sleep anyway. Biologically, she was engineered to be perfect, or at least better than the humans around her. That was something she’d overcome years ago, even if her commanding officer couldn’t. But it was something that she prided herself on now. Less sleep meant more productivity, more time she could spend weaving, typing, clicking away with her hands at the same speed that the gears in her brain were ticking. Anyway, even if she did, nightmares would pour in like water to a recently-broken dam, and she jerk herself awake in the span of a half an hour.  
The insights she’d gained on the blood were so beneficial they scared her. They scared her. The amount of black the lights hadn´t been able to snip through dragged her in. For the first time since she went to the fountain with them, she realized with an uncomfortable gravity what she was truly doing. Just a few weeks ago, this was a Gem she’d met, that she’d even become acquaintances with, that wa alive And since the blood had come from where it did, that meant Peridot could see it happening, the tiniest spinel atoms shaking, metabolizing into human cells in almost an instant. The thought of it gave her a shudder down her back that nearly felt like a stab.  
Firstly, she had run dozens of tests exploring the molecular structure of both the atoms and the cells, and concluded that the ingredients that were the poison in the Injector were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the main chemicals in the whole process. She knew this because of a half a dozen experiments or so she was running from the trace amounts of poison still left in the ground after the incident two years ago. She then did a few more experiments involving the poison on one of her blades of grass.  
Within a second, it disintegrated. Just like Spinel’d promised before.  
Peridot couldn’t help the moonbeam of a smile on the bottom of her face as she moved for her clipboard, strangled for a hopelessly-chewed pen. Tested out the ink, no regrets she could think of whatsoever, on her laboratory wall. Began to write down a diagram, setting it into four sections, all in her beloved Homeworld Gem dialect, best translated as, “Organic to Inorganic-Brief Period”, “Organic to Inorganic-Prolonged Period”, “Inorganic to Organic-Brief Period”, and “Inorganic to Organic-Prolonged Period.” An idea came, a burst of four or five of them at once- something much bigger than she could hold in her own two miniscule fanned out across the entirety of her laboratory, her house, the sect, beyond, much quicker than she could process, let alone keep contained.  
First was the “Organic to Inorganic-Brief Period”. That was made apparent when Spinel boasted at what the poison could do; Peridot was even the one to calculate how long of a duration it was until all organic life would be destroyed...in this cse, turned inorganic. Still, she did a few experiments, to keep the gears in her brain sane and lubricated if nothing else. Along with the blade of grass, she tried on a piece of her hamburger meat, brought by a concerned Sadie at both what she was doing and at the overall situation Homeworld was thrust into. Peridot had cringed a little, but ultimately dismissed her. Still, neither of them could chase off the air of that place. No matter how much they tried to. So she wrote, “immediate termination.” She couldn’t help but smirk a little; she was a little excessive even by definitions of Gem dialects.  
Next, the “Organic to Inorganic- Prolonged Period.” Now, this was wherein the rub was laid. There was no one in her immediate circle she could test. There was Steven, yes, but he was half-organic, half-inorganic. She had a suspicion that whatever switching the poison attempted to do would already be neutralized by his filter-acting Gem, but she muttered a, “Kurzignoru (F*ck it)” and did the favor of coming over to Steven’s house and doing a blood test on him to avoid the hassle of whatever he’d have to do on his wheelchair to wheel all the way to Peridot’s laboratory. After twenty harrowing minutes waiting for results, the weight sloughed off of Peridot’s shoulders as the results came exactly as she expected. And, if anything was evident by the slight discoloration of Steven’s gem, filtering had taken place to evenly distribute the organic and inorganic in his body. She shuddered a little; when the humans in the alley had removed his gem, the inorganic had built up to near-toxic levels within a matter of a minute. After Steven, there was Greg- no, he was too unreliable. His arm had been directly touched by the poison, and it would still show trace levels throughout his body. So Peridot called Sadie over, giving her a lengthy paragraph about how the work she was doing could possibly make or break the future of both human and Gemkind. Sadie gave a sigh and agreed to take slight, slight doses of the poison in pill form for a month once Peridot had the time to produce them. “A month,” finalized Sadie, gripping her windbreaker as she turned out the door, “and if you need results for longer than that by then, you can get someone else.”  
Alright, so her chart was incomplete. That came with research at times.  
But next was the “Inorganic to Organic- Brief Period.” Her only evidence so far was the Earth- it’d normalized almost instantly- but what she was concerned about was Gems specifically. Would the poison transform inorganic to inorganic further or inorganic to organic, as the idea had so broadly displayed itself in her mind before? So, not wanting to bother anyone else, she took it upon herself to inject trace amounts of the poison into herself. In an instant.  
Her stomach spasmed, it being severe enough for her to arch in her seat. She half-groaned, half-yelled in excruciating pain and vomited out of the window. All organic by-products. Felt the pain grip her stomach again, and again. Oh, God. Oh, God. What the hell had she done? She didn’t know what the fuck the poison was going to do to her, by any means. She was going- she was going to die, wasn’t she?! She was nothing but a ball of sheer, unadulterated panic on the barstool for her laboratory… the world filtered in and sprung out, jumped back in again… she called Bismuth and Lapis. While Lapis practically screamed at Bismuth asking her what was going on, Bismuth said nothing, ran over to her house. Peridot was normal other than the burning pain eating at her stomach, but Bismuth, even Lapis, disregarded it entirely as Bismuth took Peridot in her arms, took her in her house. Then the situation sunk into the both of them, and they did what they could that wasn’t limited by the humans in order to complete her recently-made bucket list. Lapis and even Bismuth couldn’t stop themselves from sobbing once or twice during the day; Peridot’s grip on the world was anything but what she wanted it to be...distant, distant to the point that end the end of it all, she could barely remember what was on her list in the first place. Lapis was hyper focused on making the call to the others. Bismuth found she had to hide the phone under her menagerie of maces.  
But Peridot was fine. Other than the first view vomiting spells, she was untouched. Completely.  
On the list, she wrote under “Inorganic to Organic-Brief Period”, she wrote the gravest information of the whole chart. “Becomes toxic even in trace doses, death may result if taken in large amounts.” The pain still looming in the background, she grunted and went into the fetal position as Lapis shushed her and sang her an old Homeworld lullaby from before the days of the war, as Bismuth loaded more wood into the fireplace and hummed somewhat involuntarily.  
Nothing happened except her experiment being delayed by a week.  
___  
After Steven made the call to his family down the road, he didn’t hesitate to tell Connie how he didn’t care that he was stuck in his wheelchair, despite the fact that Connie didn’t say a word about him having to stay home. He was going to see Peridot, and that was that.  
It was the middle of the night, the whole of the air being musty and somewhat dull;, the black of the sky even being reflected by the smell of it. Lapis was sitting on the edge of the bed, humming some song or another to herself, looking out the window time and again. Bismuth was the one to have answered the door, and she greeted them with a too-stiff grunt, even for her, before putting on her smithing apron again and heading to her forge.  
Steven wheeled himself next to the spare bed Peridot was lying in.  
She was trembling. Trembling, and even when Steven placed his hand in hers, he didn’t see it abating in any sense of the word. There were no words. None, until Connie walked over with Bismuth, having managed to convince her to leave after her stockpile of copper had ran out. None until Lapis asked, in a low and moon-tinged voice, for her to speak, rubbing her hands to the point of useless bits of crystal coming off of them and falling to the floor.  
Her eyes peeped open; her mouth only followed once she realized it was Steven's kind, brown-and-nearly black eyes."One of my experiments went...went wrong. I'll be fine, I just...don't feel too good."  
Some conflicting signals fired in Steven. She knew what she was doing, surely. But how far did she have to be so absorbed in her own certainty until she was truly gone? WIth that, he fixed his eyes on Bismuth, and, as usual, the rest followed in a matter of a few seconds.  
She sighed the weight of the forging hand in her hand. “‘M…’m sorry, but I don’t know much about chemical warfare. I’m only limited to physical warfare. If...if Peridot said she knew what was doing, I, for one, am gonna believe her. And besides...she has gotten better. Trust me. I was here the whole day.” She chuckled, fiddled with the pseudo-headdress that was her hair as it turned into a clacking chime. “I mean, this morning, she was barfing out of my window, and-”  
Everyone in the room could feel Peridot’s glare in between their shoulders.  
Another sigh from Bismuth before Lapis interjected. “I’m not experienced at all in chemical warfare. All I can think of in terms of that that I can do is keep Peridot hydrated. But that’s only if she were a human. I’ll learn about it all I can. But if you really want to contact someone...I know you’re getting desperate- and I know by the look of it… I’d say the Diamonds. I’ve got to be honest. Call me biased because I’m from Homeworld, but have it your way, I guess.”  
Bismuth sensed the immediate horror and sat back down in her seat. “Well, at least thank the Sun and Moon Above that she’s alright...or don’t, if you don’t want to.” She kept back a pursed smile, and made her way to the kitchen to make her some human poultice or another, while Lapis stayed with them and racked her brain for someone else they could possibly contact. She even made the move of asking Peridot, who had the strength to sit up this time and shake her head before she tucked herself back in.  
Lapis smiled, something that sent one through almost everyone in the room, no matter how slight. “See, already improvement.” She let it linger before Peridot began curling up again; from then on, Lapis was in her own world while comforting her.  
And each and every one of them that had blissfully left the room that day were completely unaware of how much the information that was keeping Peridot at bay would define their world for the next fuve years.


	23. Season 7, Chapter 7, Part 4: Tranza do Japa (Continued)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it's taken so long for this chapter to come out...I'm having lots of personal troubles, including a breakup, ending the relationship I was in for nearly five years.  
And don't worry...next chapter IS the last one to Season 7, Chapter 4. We've spent a lot of time at the beginning of April here, and it's about time we moved on.

The last of the night was a taste of hell, at least to Bismuth. It reached down to a place inside of her she didn’t know how to quite reach yet. It was too deep for her as of yet, too murky and cavernous. And besides, Peridot knew what she was doing. Her life was’t by any means on the line, wasn’t it? Yet when she went down to forge a laser-infused mace or two, she noticed halfway through how she wasn’t making it for anyone in particular. How the lights in the forge pointed out more angles in the shadows than they usually did. How terrified she felt, and how calmly she breathed.  
Peridot lay there, eyes as scrunched as her body. Lapis spent half her time sitting there comforting her, half the time reading one of the books the town had on marining, given from one of the 4-or-5-year-old suburban kids who, to put it in his own words, felt “very sad and very, very sorry for what we’re doing to the aliens. I wanted to bring my Bible here too ‘cause you’re not Christian, but I left it at home. I’m sorry.”  
Night fell as all three of them summoned up a package of grit and watched the movie together. Finding the movie a little too superficial for their taste- humans were so fixated on romantic relationships, it drilled into her to the point of almost physical pain-and she amused herself by trying to fall asleep. Was she truly getting better from the poison? Or was it only a matter of her body becoming accustomed to it?  
Now, how had Spinel said she’d done it? Peridot couldn’t help but smile as she fell under the weight of it... had she never watched a human fall asleep before?...  
As soon as the thought ended, her entire body convulsed once; she yelped and gripped the edge of the couch seat. Light, all of it at once, was suddenly pouring into the middle. The noises, the noises were much too loud, and Bismuth and Lapis were all the way in the kitchen discussing some topic having to do with Peridot or another… was this how all humans began their days? God, Peridot hated it. She loved humans, but if she ever woke up as one, she may as well gulp down more of the poison. Besides, people would go on and on then about how she gave her life for science…  
Before she knew it, she was on her feet . There was no sensation of burning now deep in her core, nothing that a human would feel. For the first time in those past two days, she was a Gem, through and through. The wonder of it made her smile as she strode off to the kitchen. The wonder of it almost allowed her to forget about the demonstration taking place on the border between the human and Gem sect.  
She let her smile crinkle a little, gripped a slightly concave piece of drywall made when one of Bismuth’s weapon expos to some of the other Bismuths that had settled in Maryland went wrong. “Talking about me, aren'tcha?”  
She expected the both of them to start half-laughing, half-yelling in jubilation, automatically pulling her into an embrace. But instead, what she got was what she thought she could compare to a police frisking, although she’d experienced enough of them to know this was barely anything in comparison.  
“Are you sure you’re alright?! Are you in any pain?” asked Lapis in the fratic matter everyone except her had gotten used to. “Do you think you’re up to helping us- no, you need to go out and- no, don’t go out! We need to monitor you. And you need to monitor yourself.”  
Bismuth tried to ask a few questions, stood in the back, a tree, eyes slightly wide.  
The chaos was over. Lapis sighed, made her way back.  
And all was still. Everything. Everything, and when it became unbearable and the noise of the crowds overcame the silence of the air, Peridot spoke. Eyes closed.  
“I’m fine. Call over Steven and the others.”  
_____  
Still, Peridot looked tired, beyond comprehension, and she had a feeling that this would be the case regardless of if she had tried to fall asleep last night or not. She gathered the spreadsheets and, exacting the realization that had come over her in the form of too-hazy thoughts before she’d fallen asleep the night before, asked Lapis to take a trip to her house and get the testing kit, weaving her way with her lankiness through the crowds or, better yet, flying above them with her hydro-wings. Lapis made a short, disconcerted chuckle before half-asking if Bismuth could hurl into the crowds instead before looking at Peridot’s look of slight distress again and sprinting out the door.  
Bismuth, however, did offer to push her way through the crowds, meet Steven and the others at the rendezvous point in the middle of the sect underneath the awning in one of the podunk Gem-run restaurants, and shove- or possibly fight- her way back to Peridot’s house. Before Peridot could even nod, Bismuth was out the door. Peridot then spent the next few minutes finding out conspicuous ways to barricade the house, occasionally screaming out curse words in both English and Gem if a large piece of debris was thrown at her.  
That was until a piece of debris was thrown at her twice. She could practically feel her own thermoinhibitors fail and the peridot atoms light up her face green with fury before realizing it was Amethyst.  
“Yo, P, get me in there! It isn’t safe out here!” The top of her lungs.  
Peridot could’ve furrowed her brow had it been quieter, had they been allowed to move closer to each other. The arguably quieter top of her lungs. “Aren’t you supposed to be leading the protest? You organized it!”  
“They kicked me out! It got too crazy out here! Please! I- I might get shattered!”  
A final curse in Gem- “Oi, odchod Kodoros (Oh, by the excrement of the Earthlings)...” before Peridot rushed to meet Amethyst, almost immediately being pinned by a group of humans to her right, most male, some female, all of them crazed with lust for both blood and the skin that lay above it. All of them undoubtedly what the rest of the protestors looked like.  
She took one last sharp glance behind her just as she was dragged down. Due to basic Gem physiology, there was no injury, but she could still feel the rocks accompanying the soil battering, with excruciating intensity, at the soft pseudo-dermal structure that her hologram provided. But she couldn’t help but smile at least a little genuinely as she winced- Amethyst had made her way to the porch. Which meant that after a few moments of some of the humans digging their hands below her jumpsuit and her biting and kicking at them to the best of her ability, Amethyst’s whip dragged her back up and over the deck railing.  
“You psychos!” Amethyst yelled back behind her. Peridot chuckled as Amethyst fireman’s-carried her into the door. Just like in her dreams...she let her eyes close for a few seconds. The noises outside throbbed like her head...throbbed, throbbed, throbbed...  
“Oh my gosh, did you pass out? What did they do to you?!”  
A few blinks. “Nah, I’m...I’m fine.” She was sprawled out on the couch, dirtied and in pain, but completely unharmed. Thank the goddess of Homeworld that she’d been deigned to be created this way. She let Amethyst stare wherever she chose for a little while longer before sitting up. “Where’re the others…”  
“Um...they should be...ah…” Amethyst sprinted to the door as Amethyst thought she would. But she heard a creaking to her right, not being able to stop herself from tensing despite knowing that it could only be Lapis due to how lightweight it was.  
Her eyes were just about as wide as Peridot’s as she was dragged down to the ground underneath her porch. “I...it’s horrible out there. I mean...any damage done here that Bismuth’s repaired has gotten worse, and I don’t know if any of the other Bismuths in Worcester County can…” she put a hand over her mouth. Peridot sighed, wiped off the first of the tears that fell before snatching up the testing kit by her side.  
Now to get down to business- Bismuth would’ve chuckled. Peridot chased the thought away like she always did and set up the testing kit without thinking to ask Lapis permission to position it on the kitchen table. Now to calibrate the settings to have a half-human, half-Gem recipient...ah, no, did she forget to calibrate that to begin with? Stupid, stupid...oh, no, wait. She was vomiting all over her laboratory floor the last time the thought had come to mind. She’d allow herself some slack, just this one time. Soon as she realized none of the inhabitants of Steven’s home were at the door, she joined Amethyst at the front porch.  
“Over here!” she cried. “Over-”  
Peridot had to physically cover Amethyst’s mouth to avoid the gaze of a more violent group of humans; at least one of them was carrying a rifle, much more deadlier than George Handley’s pistol, in his pocket.  
“Ow!” cried Amethyst once the group passed by and Peridot’s hand unlatched. “What gives, Peridot?”  
“What were you doing? That had no tactics at all. All of the humans know who you are. Me, though… I’m nobody. I can ‘scream and shout and let it all out’, as your favorite song goes.”  
“But you’re not nothin’ I swear!” Amethyst was unphased as a brick whizzed past her and crashed into the neighbor’s siding.  
“I know, I’m awesome,” retorted Peridot. “But you know what I mean.”  
After Peridot launched enough “Hey, Steven!”s for them to be safe in her living room, she got out the spreadsheets. Lapis looked over her shoulder. Bismuth came in, exhausted, behind them, and Peridot waited for Bismuth to wash up her face before getting started. The grimness settled over each and every one of them, although no one could quite pinpoint any reason.  
“Spinel’s poison. We all have at least a feeling that it’s going to negatively affect everyone around us, right?”  
The slightest of nods from everyone.  
“Alright. From the experiments I’ve been able to conduct, my most recent one somewhat to my detriment, I’ve been able to assemble a list.  
All of them crowded around the table. In the middle of it all, Peridot had the idea to have everyone form a line and read when it was their turn.  
ORGANIC TO INORGANIC- BRIEF PERIOD=IMMEDIATE DISINTEGRATION  
ORGANIC TO INORGANIC- PROLONGED PERIOD= UNKNOWN  
INORGANIC TO ORGANIC- BRIEF PERIOD= TOXIC EVEN IN TRACE DOSES, MAY CAUSE DEATH IF TAKEN IN LARGE AMOUNTS  
INORGANIC TO ORGANIC-PROLONGED PERIOD= CAUSES HUMAN-LIKE TRAITS, WHICH EXPOSES SUBJECT TO VULNERABILITIES SUCH AS HUNGER, THIRST, ILLNESSES TRADITIONALLY FOUGHT BY A FUNCTIONING IMMUNE SYSTEM, AND HUMAN-CAUSABLE INJURIES  
“Unknown?” asked Connie, who’d read more books than Greg and Steven combined by the time she was fifteen. “Why do you say that, Peridot?”  
“Well,” she replied, twirling the visor she’d subconsciously summoned while they were making their rounds, “not for long. I’ve started Sadie on some pills I’ve created-”  
There would’ve been a clamor had there not been one outside; Greg still asked a general “is Sadie gonna be alright?” before rereading the document. Peridot nodded and said something about the miracles of the human liver before returning back to her spreadsheets.  
“I don’t...I don’t know how to stress any of the gravity of this to you enough. But all of this is in the Earth’s crust. Deep in the Earth’s crust, but nevertheless in the Earth’s crust. As of now, according to my estimations, there is nowhere in the world where you can’t penetrate the crust without finding this poison. We may be shielded from its effects now due to time-caused distance, but if someone utilizes this...if someone wants to hurt someone with it, if entire countries want to do so...then I’m afraid all of us may have to go back to Homeworld sooner than when the Sun eventually engulfs this planet. Regardless of what species we are.”  
Despite the noise outside, this raised a little commotion, mostly from Lapis, who Bismuth and Peridot alike were quick to comfort. But almost everyone had their own objections against it, especially Steven, who subconsciously went on a tirade on facets of Homeworld life he had no way of knowing before putting his hands over his mouth and half-collapsing into Connie’s arms.  
“Which is why…”  
Everyone looked up. A rope. Peridot reeled a little; it was disconcerting for so much pressure to be put on her in this way.  
“Which is why we have to know how to take it out of me.”  
There was nothing for awhile. Nothing from everyone but a longing for the waves. Nothing from everyone but at least a whimper from their souls. Peridot hated to say it, but she loved this nothing, loved it almost as much as she was subjected to propaganda about Earth when she was younger. Were they still doing it, her thoughts trailed off to? Was this what could’ve been causing the conflicts on Homeworld? Was this-  
“Got any ideas?” asked Bismuth. The first to break any sort of silence, whether it be with words or without. Even Amethyst liked that about her.  
It took six seconds- six seconds entailing a scream outdoors and Pearl, Sapphire, and Lapis rushing towards the door together to see if anyone was hurt nearby- for Peridot to say anything. Greg beckoned them to come back over before Peridot gave him a look that was something other than either amusement or condescension. Greg knew from all this time to take it as a compliment.  
Peridot twirled the probe extension from her blood test kit in her fingers. “Thank you. Of course I have an idea. I’m Peridot. Now, I have a theory. Steven...your gem filters out toxins, doesn’t it?”  
A moment of Connie half-noogieing, half-seizing the strands of hair before he jolted, spoke. “Yeah....yeah, it does.”  
“Well…” continued Peridot, “what if we could accelerate that progress? Add in a catalyst. Now, there’s one problem- there’s nothing I can acquire here that’s liquid that can do this. I have one method in mind, but it is primitive. Very Earth-like. No other planet I know would dare use it.”  
“Does it involve electricity?” The only sanguine thing Pearl had said all that month; nobody could help from looking at her, and most of them said a word or two of congratulations. The joke that’d prepared to jump out of Peridot’s mouth jumped back down her throat.  
“Yes, it does.” She smiled her warmest smile, feeling a sense of appreciation she hadn’t had in a long, painful while when she could see Pearl was put at ease. “Would you like to be my volunteer?”  
Each begged Pearl not to do it in their own way, with Bismuth ultimately running towards the front door in order to keep Peridot and her from crossing. But not even Bismuth, it turned out, could withstand the smile on Peridot’s face. It made Bismuth question many of the things she’d seen outside in the past few days. All it took was Pearl and Peridot to look back at them, for Greg to nod, and for the wave to make one voluminous pull, loud enough for those in the Gem sect with particularly good ears to convince them to leave.  
It only took a few minutes for Peridot to set up the apparatus, shooing away the occasional gnat that flew in her face after being spawned in the standing water nearby. However, it took a half an hour more for her to let out a few choice words in both English and Gem, realize she needed access to the full voltage that a pad mounted transformer could grant her access to, and then realize she needed to get away from Beach City. Much of that half an hour consisted of Pearl helping her lug the apparatus into the now-hopelessly neat van from almost a decade of it having to carry heavy materials and driving to a secluded, wooded area in Beach Pines, which entailed no housing developments whatsoever.  
Pearl walked, numbly, to a few feet away from the van. As she set up the apparatus, Peridot muttered something about how she was surprised that there were spots like this in Beach City that were normally unoccupied. Pearl sat, found her feet were digging into the damp coastal dirt, wondering if there was any way for Spinel to come springing out from one side of the woods or another. She found it nothing less than a miracle how her mind eventually dwindled it to an amusing surprise instead of something she intrinsically needed- or, if she did, she wasn’t aware of it enough for it to show.  
When the apparatus finished being set up, Peridot sat by for a few brief, rare words of reassurance.  
“And besides,” added Peridot as she clamped Pearl’s limbs to the restraints inspired by the clamps of ships’ feet on planets’ surfaces, “what we’ll do now will help more than just Spinel. Think of them, Pearl. Think of everyone around you. ‘Specially Greg. Everyone knows you have the hots for him by now. Everyone, Pearl. Think of everyone.”  
Pearl nodded, shut her eyes. Peridot pushed the button.  
In an instant, Pearl was a dying phoenix, at least by what she could glean from the literary tropes Connie had been telling her about for six years. Her body alit with electricity, she couldn’t summon the gumption or the control of the nervous system that her gem imitated to even glare at Peridot. She was silent, wracked with pain, as the grass underneath her faded in and out, in, out, in, out...and then faded out completely. Limbs stretched like the wire above her, she collapsed on the small of her back. She could notice some crows above, and marveled at the signature blue coloration on the back of the tallest one’s head before she closed her eyes.  
Even Peridot admitted her voice was nagging, even more so when she shrieked if Pearl was alright and for her to wake up, but Pearl didn’t stir. Ten minutes passed by. A half an hour. She could see where the trees’d had the angle of their shadows shifted, could tell that the traffic was worsening, at least on the portion of Coastal Highway she could see from the clearing. Peridot paced back and forth, looking in a frantic half-second to see if any humans were hurtling around the bend in their primitive “cars”. Metal Kindergarten chambers, more like. Was this…  
She had to poof her.  
She had to poof her, because she had entered into what humans called a coma. When they entered a coma, not only were they not of any use to anyone, but they were also embedded in a state she’d never want to be in- trapped between poofing and being fully existing, with no way to escape. It was one of the things she’d learned on Homeworld- to be powerless was to be not a Gem any longer. And she couldn’t allow anyone, Crystal or Homeworld, to feel that.  
She took the rifle Greg put in the back of his van and promptly shot Pearl in the chest.  
Pearl shuddered, coughed, and let out a few gasps before she poofed. Peridot sighed, wrapping her in a towel that Greg often used to finish off his jobs at the car wash before dismantling the apparatus. It would take two weeks for her to reform- at least that was what Steven told her what happened the last time she was poofed. But then there was the last time, where everyone had to be poofed in order to sneak them across the Maryland-Delaware state border. She’d average it into a week.  
Still, she thought as she put the keys into ignition, an ungodly long period of time in regards to her experiment.  
Beach City was a shell. It’d been a shell for a long time. And when she went back to the Gem sect, trash left by the humans had made the streets appear like it was hit by a mortar. But the important thing is that they were deserted by humans and Gems alike. She reiterated that as a Zircon lay in one of the alleyways, sobbing, cuts marking her chest, her stomach, her forehead. Peridot sighed, hopped out of the van, and took a precious vial of Steven’s saliva to her before making the rest of her way home.  
Greg almost tackled her at the sight of Pearl’s gem wrapped in the towel. It took thirty seconds of Peridot shrieking for the others not to hurt her, that she had an explanation for the house to calm down. The bags underneath the others’ eyes were enough to convince her that they may not absorb all that she would say.  
Nevertheless, it was important enough for both of this species if it was important enough for her. And if it was important enough for her, they needed to at least try.  
“I know it’s late.”  
That was all she said for a short while before taking the pearl in the towel and handing it, a little more brusquely than Greg would’ve liked, to him.  
“But I need to continue this. Not when the whole of both of our species is at stake. Stay up with me if you like. Or go home. The outside is more cluttered than anything right now.”  
She looked at Greg, solemnly, with all the graveness of all of the deaths that had happened to the Gems thus far in this entire conflict. Every Gem in the state of Maryland, in the country, in the world that had died to a human, or worse, had died to themselves as a result…  
“I need the pearl back. An examination, nothing more.”  
Ultimately, the only way Greg could be convinced to have the test performed on the gem was for him to hold it in the process. Peridot tensed, shifted the point of the machine to a centimeter in order to avoid Greg’s hands and possibly obtaining a false positive. Seconds ticked by, but all the tensity was gone. That tension Peridot’d had contained in her was the last of the night. Not even the humans in the suburbs treated the night, let alone the day ahead, with that level. It’d been absorbed from everyone by the ever-dwelling moon. It’d been the goddess of fertility and warmth in the Gem culture, and, as it was for thousands of years, it now surveyed over the opposite…  
The test on the gem concluded.  
She laughed. Did so for thirty seconds, uncontrollably. Everyone responded with either silence or a few disconcerted chuckles, not thinking to ask what was the reason for Peridot’s laughter.  
“Her....oh, God, it worked!” A half-laugh, half-shriek that could only be caused by an experiment gone right .”I didn’t think it would, but… the toxin level in Pearl’s Gem was at 2 percent, but now it’s zilch. Nada. Nothing!”  
“And, how did you…” Lapis did one last of those chuckles before thinking to take off the last of the little probes that were on Pearl’s gem.  
“I turned her into a laser is what I did. Humans have been doing it for...for sixty, seventy years before, but that was just to goad us, now, it’s…”  
She locked her gaze into Lapis. “Hook me up. Hook me up into the machine, please.”  
“What?!”  
“What I did to Pearl, I need to have done to me.”  
“But I need you to explain; it’s-”  
“There’s no time!”  
“But what if you get poofed? What’m I supposed to do then?”  
“I won’t poof.”  
“But you won’t have any proof that you won’t-”  
“Trust me.”  
Lapis didn’t know how quickly she was breathing until those two words left Peridot. But after both this and Bismuth’s hand on her shoulder, she nodded, followed Peridot’s instructions to put the apparatus on her. At her behest, Steven and Connie went home at that point- there would be untold repercussions from the protest that’d happened that day.  
Still, Bismuth had to be the one to push the button.  
In an instant, Peridot felt the same feeling Pearl had experienced; her first and only thought was she would apologize to her afterwards. The whole of the house was taken aback. Lapis screamed, had to be held back by Bismuth. The bottom of the crawl space, the corner of the attic was touched by the green light. The living room had become it.  
It was over. It was over, and Peridot crawled towards the chair on all fours, staring at the floor. Shaking. Lapis took off the apparatus, but it was Amethyst’s job to hold her. To take in the chair from the back porch and to rock her back in forth in it. To hold her in when Peridot attempted to leave after five minutes.  
And after ten, it was her job to listen to what Peridot had to say next.  
“The poison’s gone.”  
Amethyst relayed it to everyone, finding it to be too late to keep Peridot in a state of recovery when everyone else rushed over to her, save for Greg, who kept Pearl in just as protective of a position in his hands. She had to let Peridot sit up next to her, although she refused to let her hand leave hers.  
“The poison’s gone,” she repeated. Sat up, shook a little, put her free hand on the arm of the chair closest to her. “I....turned myself into a laser as well. What it did was it...stimulated the particles in our Gem, and...sort of kicked out the organic particles from it. I...can do it to any of the other Gems that need it, but I need to analyze them, and…” She let herself slide and nest herself in Amethyst’s lap. Drunkenly kissing Amethyst’s forehead as she went down.  
All of them decided to end the night. Amethyst watched all those around her. Didn’t shapeshift into anything, didn’t think of getting up from her seat. Watched as most of them went home after Bismuth reiterated to them that, no, she didn’t need any help. Watched as Bismuth struggled to contain the mess. Asked for the feather-filled seat that more closely resembled a bed once Bismuth chased enough of the clutter off of it for it not to be painful.  
And fell asleep against Peridot’s still-shaking arms.  
Bismuth chuckled, turned off the lights for them, and decided to clean up in another room.


	24. Season Seven, Chapter 7: Tranza do Japa (Final Part)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE you that Season 7, Chapter 5 will not be nearly as long.

Of all of the members of the household, Sapphire was the only one who held the status of spending the entire night in bed, yet spending the vast majority of the night staring at the little intricacies in the cavern ceiling. Since Garnet, by nature, hated beds, she had to stumble out, Ruby acting as protection, and see if there were any safe places in the Gem sects where there were any Gems desperately vending out beds.  
But the first night of April 2022 was lenient-dangerously and desperately so. She kissed Ruby on the forehead, told her how she was going to go out and monitor Peridot’s state, and slipped off where the moon could embrace her the way it did when she knelt towards its goddess in prayer.  
She knocked on Bismuth’s door, dismissed by her telling her Peridot was sleeping with Amethyst and would undoubtedly recover by morning. Sapphire nodded. Felt the coastal winds as they turned her dress into tent-shoots.  
And as she walked away, she had one thought. One thought that set the night into motion, one thought that would be the catalyst for more thoughts, thoughts that would haunt everyone else in the home, and no doubt in the entire Gem sect, for those next months.  
What if, Sapphire thought, Peridot and Amethyst were to, by accident, fuse in the middle of the night?  
It was something she tossed an audible chuckle at, something she dismissed as quickly as Bismuth had her. But the word, “fusion”, plagued her the rest of the way home. She and Ruby weren’t quite ready to fuse yet- Spinel’s death was still just slightly too fresh, albeit they’d probably be able to fix a steady state for a few hours in public, a few days in private. All of her troubles about fusion she’d already told Ruby if Ruby hadn’t already told her, whether those troubles had to do with Earth or Homeworld.  
She stopped in a nearby alley; this was the Gem sect, after all. Even if humans did appear here wanting to rip out the gem directly from her hand, she could always use her speed to make a quick getaway, and even if that failed, she could use what little cryokinesis she knew she had to try and freeze their limbs to the wall.  
She attempted to use her future vision, this time directing her entire self towards Homeworld. But it wasn’t that simple. It spanned across hundreds of lightyears, traveling farther than any human had traveled ununabetted thus far in their history. She found that the best way to do so was imagine she was a spaceship- no, more than that. She was its core. Powered by lasers made by dying or dead Gems or pieces of them, pumped with painkillers in order to ease their end. Traveling, yet humming, being its own dynamic creature. Becoming all the aspects that Ruby loved about her, becoming enveloped in her own mystery, and letting that take her to the point to where if she were to fall unconscious in the alley, she wouldn’t notice until someone came up to her and began physically shaking her.  
She shook. In the time it took for her to blink and begin using her future vision, she saw all that she needed to see. Gems left and right being stabbed in places deliberately intended to make them writhe in agony before they slowly poofed. Others being reduced to shards by explosions, their shards being used as secondary targets to take out more Gems. The Diamonds, as usual, reclining, ordering Jaspers and Garnets and Quartzes, some of which they had druged into submission . All of the Gems furious at the Diamonds’ still-extant fusion regulations. All of the Diamonds furious at the Gems for attempting to retaliate. For being leeches on their resources. Resources, resources...it was all a game, wasn’t it? She’d even made a song about it. Pitying all of them. About war- even though this specific incident wasn’t one- being a game, and those being further at the top being even more manipulated as time went by. The more died, the more those at the very top, hanging just over the pawns, reveled in it. The song she’d sung while being held captive on the ship all those years before, the song Jasper’d screamed at her to stop singing…  
The future pushed her out.  
It was a force only comparable to that of the waves outside in high tides in July, and Sapphire was tossed against the wall, thinking only to shield her hand with her free one. Her back was cracked open and lit aflame, but after laying there, laying there for thirty seconds, she found she didn’t poof. Whatever pain was there had only been put there for show. By the future? Everything newfound, with such delicacy. All these mysteries…  
All these mysteries...  
But in time, as promised before she even thought to kiss Ruby before she left home, one of them stepped out. The copper-haired one, the part of the group that had evaded one of the protestors when it all began, much before Amethyst started making a plan to formalize one .  
“Arnie.” She smiled. “I was wondering when you’d come out here.”  
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t take just a second or two to wake up in the middle of the night to meet one of your friends.” He sighed, fiddled with a dog tag in his pocket. “Doubt Christy or Charles are up, though. I’m the only one who works nights- I gotta leave in a half an hour. What’s eatin’ ya?”  
“I’m...worried.”  
Stopped fiddling. Settled into Sapphire with brown eyes. She didn’t know why she remotely felt frightened, but she felt that way- beyond that. She felt pierced. Pierced almost enough to run home and sit on her bed until Ruby looked into her with her own brown eyes, until Sapphire was settled enough to attempt to go to sleep the way she usually did.  
“I..”  
She grounded herself, reminding herself that the eyes Arnie had were the same Ruby had. Anything she saw in Arnie was only a reflection of what she saw in Ruby; this, in earnest, was one of the subconscious reasons she’d befriended him in the first place. She clenched, gritted her fist against the brick wall- she had to fuse with Garnet, or else the world would trap her in its manacles like it always did on Homeworld before she met Ruby. Maybe she would try it next week.  
“I’m worried. On...Homeworld, have I ever told you about that?...there’s...it’s not right there. And I wouldn’t ever say this to you unless there’s no way you could be brought there...I wouldn’t even tell this to Lars, considering he’s an off-color…”  
“Hey. I know all the basics of Gems at this point. I’m not going to pretend to understand all of what you said. And I know you enough not to ask what an off-color is. But what do you mean it isn’t right?” He pierced her in his unwittingly frightening attempt to pay attention to her; Sapphire thought it was best to let herself stare at the alley floor.  
“There’s...things going on there. Horrible, horrible things. Gems dying, being hurt by other Gems, tearing down buildings that were up for thousands and thousands of years...”  
“Well, why do you think they’re happening?”  
“There’s something I have to explain to you. Something that only happens on my home planet- in no way does it happen here. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”  
“You have to be more specific about it.”  
“Alright. Well, it’s something that the Diamonds- those who rule over Homeworld- made illegal. A long time ago. It’s when two Gems join forces.”  
“Alliances? Seems awful shortsighted of them.” She saw the doubt making him clench. The hand in his pocket had stopped grasping at the dog tag, the feet were fixed instead of lolling from left to right the way did Arnie did, especially when he was sleep-deprived to this extent.  
Gems could generate their own light-as Garnet, her and Ruby did so for Steven when he needed it before he turned old enough to be taught how to do it himself. But never their own heat. Still, Sapphire felt it spread across her cheeks. She always heard of humans describing it, but, as usual when it came to experiences they and humans shared, especially in light of what they found out about the poison, she found herself launching into a state of mild panic. Mild enough for the world to drift away from her, but not nearly as much as she did when she exercised her future vision on someplace so far away.  
“Well, it’s not. In fact, it’s been serving us well since even before the war.” There was no way Arnie could miss Sapphire’s instinctive head-turn.  
“Sapphire.”  
That was all he said for thirty seconds. All the while, the world seemed to drift, and drift, from Sapphire.  
It drifted to the point to where one of the cars sped towards the both of them, and Arnie had to take Sapphire and hold her back. Oh, no. Not that. Anything but that. Not a protective gesture like that. In Gem physiology, pseudohormonal crystal formations would take over, and a move like that could mean the both of them fusing if they had mutual feelings for each other, or at least considered each other acquaintances. And, if any of the Universe family was to be right, fusion with a human was most definitely possible…  
She rolled out of his way on the road again, with the momentum flinging her arm into a mud puddle slowly built up by days of unrelenting rain. He yelled; she could do little else than walk her way back towards the wall. It was moments like this, little moments, when she wondered how this, all of this, started with her being an aristocrat from Homeworld…  
When she was confronted by him about this, only two options sprang in her brain that were quick enough to evade him half-asking, half-yelling at her: fight him or tell him at least a portion of the truth. So she did the latter.  
“I had to- had to prevent something from happening.”  
“What- hey, if this is what you’re worried about, then that’s alright. Christy and I, we’re dating, remember? I dunno which guy you’re with. But that I would’ve done to anyone, you’d almost gotten hit by a car…”  
“That wouldn’t matter.” She clenched her teeth not at him, but at herself. She’d revealed too much of it already. She’d have to dance around her words as Ruby danced around strategies that her commanders gave her back during the war.  
“So you’re scared just by me trying to protect you? I’m not going to stop doing it, if that’s what you want. I’m not going to just sit there and watch you die. Look. Not all humans are as bad as you think they are, alright?”  
She let her teeth unclench, let her body follow. “As bad as I think they are? What side do you think I chose in the war?!”  
“How do I know? Hopefully, the side with us. But it doesn’t matter anyway- you’re friends with us, right? That says more than what you did in the war. And I’ve done my research. Even the ones for us thought of us more as playthings than anything, didn’t they?”  
“Arnie.”  
That was all she said for thirty seconds, all while the world continued to drift from her.  
“Sapphire...how did you win?”  
All while the breezes continued to blow, wafting the ocean through the air. The ocean so many Gems had used, time and time again, to get themselves to heal, no matter how little results it created.  
It was enough of a breeze, and the world had drifted far enough out of its way from her, to begin.  
“You know the alliances I talked to you about?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Well, I suppose they can best be described as...alliances between Gem and Gem. Individual Gems, not armies like humans tend to do. And this...alliance goes beyond paper. It goes...with each other.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean ‘with each other’. What are Gems made out of.”  
“Correct me if I’m wrong on this. But...the Gem itself, the hologram. That’s...that’s it, isn’t it?”  
“There’s something more. We have thoughts and emotions too, Arnie. Possibly even a soul.”  
His turn to clench his teeth for a half-moment, although Sapphire knew he meant just as much harm to her as she did to him when she clenched her teeth.  
For another minute, they sat there. Sapphire busied herself with the numbness that came with such an overload of information, whether taken in or given out. Let her finger wander to her arm, where the mud had been flung across it, attempted to scrape it off despite her knowing she’d have to use Steven’s shower immediately after she got home....  
“And are you one of those?”  
She stood up. Looked Arnie in the eyes one last time.  
“Yes. I’m with another Gem.”  
“The way countries in NATO are with each other?”  
All this time in their conversation, she’d been distancing herself from him. He’d walked out of the store at first for him to almost be touching her. After Arnie had held Sapphire back by arm’s length, she’d stayed three feet away from him. Four now, and although Arnie didn’t realize it yet, both him and Sapphire had to speak considerably louder than they did before.  
“No. The way you are with Christy.”  
That was all she said before she walked away from him into the night, listening for a “come back” that would never come.  
_____


	25. Season Seven, Chapter Eight, Part One: Nienormalnosc

In the Gem language, "Nienormalnosc" is best translated into "abnormal". It is normally directed on Homeworld towards relationships on that planet that have to do with fusion, since they almost always involve at least the bodily, if not the sexual or even the romantic, intimacy of two women.

The only thing Sapphire would hear that night is, “Heya, Sapphire, how’s Peridot doing?” from Ruby, a muttered “She’s fine, but I‘m tired” out of herself, and a little wrinkling from her bed as she fell asleep for the first time in years.  
Her phone went unopened for days. Even on the second, the third, the fourth of the month, Sapphire refused to power it on, Ruby being practically the only one to respect her decision without knowing what happened.  
While Sapphire’s phone went unpowered, Amethyst took to retreating inside her room and becoming more acquainted with her piles of messes than she had ever before. Even straightened them up once or twice, taking considerable care on one pile to make it look as if Pearl had arranged it. Albeit Connie criticized her method of operations for the whole thing, no one outright blamed her for any of the damage done to the town, which was mostly contained to hopelessly foul puddles that’d settled into the trash overnight. And she’d refused to come to the cleanup operations the team went on to occupy themselves- again met with no outright blaming.  
But as far as Greg was concerned, if anyone asked him, he wouldn’t go back in time to change it. Because while Pearl had to take some convincing to come with the cleanup operations, she still had the time and the emotional fortitude to come down to Amethyst’s room and make sure she was alright. Once, she even had the energy to replicate one of Lars’ ube rolls, cracking joke after joke at how the purple yams in it matched Amethyst’s color. And even if Amethyst gave it a melancholic little glance before eating one of them and staring back at whatever was occupying her at the moment, Pearl decided, it was better than nothing. For the first time, pride spread across her. And it was something not easily bought, and something almost impossibly sold.  
Three days. For three days, their routine was complete monotony compared to what they’d experienced for months, perhaps years. Stagnant. It drove all of them to just a fraction of a fraction of insanity. They all woke up just when they could see what they were doing outside, met at the area of town to where the mess was the worst, and began cleaning, with the humans stopping only for meals, drinks of water, and quick trips to the nearest Johnny Blue. Dumpsterful after dumpsterful worth of trash went into Greg’s van, and it was his duty to drag his ol’ reliable all around the county in hopes of finding a convenience center that wouldn’t reject him outright for being so associated with Gems, or at least a spot to where he could unload the van without being seen. Eventually, he decided to bring Connie along for efficiency, disheartened that he couldn’t bring along more people due to there being so much trash in the back.  
The work continued until eight or nine at night, when the whole party was dirtied beyond comprehension and all needing some sort of wash. While the Gems stayed up during the night as they usually did to offer them some time to relax and take care of the business they hadn’t had time to during the day, the humans almost immediately began their bedtime routines, exhausted.  
By the third day, their muscles and joints were furious- even Steven’s, who could barely do more than pick up some of the garbage and scoot his way to the back of his father’s van. While the Gems continued to work, especially Bismuth, who was half a landfill bulldozer herself, most of the humans had to stop after lunch that day to keep themselves from being permanently hurt to some extent or another.  
April 4th, after the brunt of the mess in Beach City was finally, finally contained, Sapphire had no choice but to turn on her phone after having to go on a mission of her own to help rescue Ruby, who had become involved in a scuffle between a group of humans.  
It was all by instinct. “Ruby, did you tell them?”  
She looked, all nervousness that could be kept in someone that size, to the left and to the right before she eased the tension in her shoulders and slapped some of the dirt off of her. “Tell ‘em what, Saph?”  
“About the fact that...we’re together as a fusion. As you know, people haven’t taken too kindly, since we both are considered women on this planet, to our partnership…”  
“What?” A sputter. “N-no! Saph, what’s gotten into you? These are just regular old jerk-type humans. They just know I’m a Gem, that’s all. I’m not even sure if they know what fusion is. And even if they did, I wouldn’t give away infot that private to them, I’ve barely even met them-”  
It was only then that Sapphire noticed herself tearing up.  
It was funny- tears, in humans, were just byproducts of cortisol release or allergens or irritants triggering the cornea. But over hundreds and hundreds of years of living with humans, or at least knowing their behavior, the Gem seemed to specifically pick up this one human trait, no matter how much or little poison they’d been exposed to. And even if a Gem on Homeworld had no idea humans existed or knew any of their behaviors, if they witnessed another Gem cry, or at least knew that other Gems cried, that caused the Gem to pick up the reaction.  
Sapphire couldn’t help but smile for an instant. Humans weren’t powerless after all. They could reduce even the most powerful Gems to crying lumps on the floor in just a moment.  
“Saph?”  
Before Sapphire could say anything, Ruby wiped her tears with her jumpsuit the way she always did. Looked into her eye. Looked at it for a long while, and if it darted in any direction, Ruby’s gaze was enough for it to come snapping back.  
There was no kiss. What followed was an interrogation.  
“Did you tell any of ‘em? Arnie or Christy or...is that why you haven’t opened your phone?”  
She nodded, numbly. Ruby smiled a half-toothless smile, let her hand stroke Sapphire’s side as it made her way down to her pocket. “Want to open it together?”  
Ten minutes later, even Ruby was shocked at their cruelty. There was the usual “why aren’t you responding”s, but what she saw next disturbed her perhaps more than it even did Sapphire. In the course of four days, the messages had slowly, but undeniably surely progressed to Arnie telling Christy and Charles without any input from Sapphire to them making a few jokes- albeit not too biting- about her “decision”. However, in the later half of what they said, they’d bombarded her with sources from left and right. Was it because she was only surrounded by women for the majority of her life, and her being with Ruby was simply due to the fact that she was exposed to human men so little compared to women of both species? Homosexuality can be brought on by her being mistreated. Was she mistreated when she was on Homeworld? Did she lie to them about her status as an aristocrat, and possibly her living one of the most opulent, the most lax lifestyles in the entirety of the empire? And if that was true, what type of a friend was she to them? Homosexuality was justs an aberration in her Gem’s composition. Did she fall down at any time? Did she hit her Gem against something? Maybe something had happened to her in the war. Yes, something did happen...she met Ruby, that’s what.  
Ruby responded by taking her phone and blocking all of them.  
“Here.” The fire hadn’t quite mounted to her eyes yet, but Sapphire could see it was encroaching them. She could see two futures where Ruby became violent. Destroyed the building closest to her, had to spend the next week repairing it, dragging out the cleanup operations. But she was nevertheless intimidated. Yet dragged in, all at the same time. She was a flame, neverending. It was why she loved her.  
“If any of those dastards show up again and try to do so much as lay a finger on you, Saph, I swear, I’m going to make them wish they were never born.”  
____  
Amethyst, for one, wished she was never born for the first time in years. “Born” wasn’t quite the right word, but she knew human culture enough to know the word would make her come across to them as weirder than she already was.  
Of course she would start a protest on her own accord. Although she didn’t prefer to say it, she hated George just as much as Pearl did, and the first time she saw him, would jump at the opportunity to sink the spikes on his whip, up close and individually, into his body. But the real question here was whether or not she missed Spinel. That was a question she avoided beyond the shock anyone else would have in her situation, and it was a question she wanted to avoid now.  
And of course, the protest wasn’t everything. Although she attempted to comfort Pearl once or twice, the tension in the house would press on both its walls and her head after a few hours. Then, she’d quickly find herself doing one of three things: walking around the kinder areas around the human sect in search of her friends, spending time with her friends, or going over to Steven’s house and see if there were any board games he wanted to play. Occasionally, though, one of her male friends would promise her something more than that, and she’d be coming home in the morning after having to do some emergency shapeshifting inside her to keep herself from dying the way Rose did.  
She didn’t know how to lead. Hell, the only two people she knew she could turn to for leadership were Garnet, who’d been unfused now for weeks, and Jasper, who was more interested in strategizing a hypothetical war against the humans than simply helping her with a protest against them. And she did ask Garnet to fuse back together more than once while she planned the protest. All she was met with was a slight glare if Ruby was there and a tangible “no” and a brief excuse from Sapphire.  
So she took it all upon herself. She’d been so interested in the Internet that she started typing away on some of its forums even when Steven was a baby. She knew more about it, knew more about most things in life, than Pearl gave her credit for. As easy as if she were eating, she managed to organize sixty to seventy percent of all the Gems in the gem sect in a matter of days.  
She’d felt so unabashedly vivified when she stepped out into the crowds. Hundreds of Gems, hundreds of signs. All under her wing. She was even carried on the shoulders of a Topaz, who lacked a sign due to it overshadowing everyone else’s had she brought one. On Homeworld, the penalty for a Topaz socializing with a defective Gem was a crack that was physically incapable of being repaired for a month, even by Rose’s tears.  
But they’d quickly turned on her. They weren’t getting enough results. The humans were pushing back too quickly. As Amethyst did expect at first (and warn them about beforehand), the humans were starting a few small scuffles with some of the more aggressive Gems. And it was then that, protected by some of the Rubies and the Topaz that she was sitting on, Amethyst managed to get a good glare at the human signs. And not even she had used this level of propaganda, a shudder running down her from what she’d witnessed was given to the Homeworld soldiers in the Beta Kindergarten by the Diamonds.  
She eyed a little over half of them, and knew they were Bible verses- she’d been freshly made around the time it was being written. But it wasn’t as if she was old enough to read it, or interested in reading it even now. But the signs pointed them out with inhuman interest, a clawed finger from some of the witch costumes she’d seen Halloween of 2021. They took up half the signs, spewing out a few key phrases like how if they were “reviled in the name of Christ, they would be blessed.” They accused the Gems of “not speaking peaceably, but devising false accusations against those who lived quietly in the land.” And finally, to make what she called a “real humdinger” from the days playing baseball at the barn, “from one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth.” One man highlighted with blood-colored Sharpies, which didn’t help their case in the least.  
From what Amethyst could see, all they were asking for was a further investigation than what the police officer had conducted at the theater the day Spinel kicked the bucket.  
But the other Gems noticed how little progress they were gaining. They were bloodthirsty. Amethyst had never known what it was like to fight in anything beyond a one-on-one fight, but she knew what being bloodthirsty looked like. Emotions thousands of years old activated in them. While Amethyst only saw scared, misinformed beings, they saw an army.  
They saw an army.  
One of the Garnets and one of the Emeralds there fused to a ten-foot giant. Amethyst immediately sprung off of the Topaz’s shoulders and hooked the whip onto Amethyst’s waist as she screamed, begged at them not to hurt the humans. They were going to videotape them, she screamed. “Do you want the whole protest to be ruined?!”  
The eyesore of a fusion came apart, although both the Emerald and the Garnet glared at the humans with the same bloodlust before making a Homeworld signal Amethyst had no way of knowing about to tell the other Gems to back off. But Amethyst could feel the bloodlust coming off of the other Gems as soon as they realized that Amethyst had been attached to the fusion’s waist and had, more likely than not, ordered it to stop. And as soon as the bloodlust came, she darted towards Peridot’s house. The humans began approaching her, some of who she knew. Claude Gardner with the roaming left eye...she’d spent more than one night getting acquainted with his bed…  
And as she’d approached the back of Peridot’s porch before the entirety of Homeworld was filled to the brim in trash, Claude’s hands wrapped around her shoulders and squeezed them tightly enough for her to scream.  
______  
Steven had been staring at the communicator for thirty minutes by the time Connie stepped out of her room after taking a shower.  
“I told you,” she half-whispered, patting his shoulder and giving him a kiss on the forehead for good measure, “we’d call them in the morning. And they already seem like they’re pretty...busy.”  
“Right word for it, huh?” He buried his head in his hands, clutching the communicator before he went down.  
“Steven.” She knew from all the years of being with him to thank whatever she thought she believed in that Pearl wasn’t here to scream at his behavior. “You…you’re not her, alright?” It was pathetic, she knew. Since he always intrinsically would be a shred of his mother, always containing a trace of her memories. Even Connie would be panicking at the thought of having to contact someone much bigger than her who locked her in a giant chamber, jet-black all over its walls…  
The next five minutes consisted of the both of them trying to arrange Steven into the bed as least clumsily as possible, a mixture of Steven’s levitation that came with his bubbling powers and Connie’s hands. But as soon as Connie’s hands lingered for a few minutes, he went to sleep after muttering a “what if a war starts?”.  
War. If only Connie could decide when and where she could be deaf. Because if it weren’t for that, she wouldn’t be up now, in the wee hours of April 5th. She was taking inventory of everything and everyone she’d lose if that were to happen. She’d seen it for herself- Earth wasn’t even close to matching up with Homeworld’s technological advancements. If she had the time after all of these political carnival games, then maybe she’d be close to designing one type of weapon or another. But that would only buy the Earth a few more seconds, and that might anger the Diamonds enough to send enough to obliterate Earth entirely…  
She sighed and let Steven hold her numbly until she fell asleep an hour and a half later.  
Even the next day, when Steven attempted all by his lonesome to call the Diamonds when Connie was still catching up on sleep, they didn’t respond. He would’ve been surprised, but the last time he called them, while their castle wasn’t quite under siege, the Gems would most likely collectively taken ahold of their ankles and dragged them like the Atlantic’s undertow Whether or not the Diamonds were in actual danger, however, was something he felt he shouldn’t burden himself with, at least for that day. Besides...he was a Diamond too, right? He’d know it, probably in some form or another of a burning sensation in his navel, if they were in true danger.  
On April 6th, they tried again. Again without a response. All with Sapphire’s situation with her friends growing worse and Ruby trying as hard as she could to stop Sapphire from clinging to her.  
At 2 that afternoon, Uncle Andy, of all people, dropped in with his bushplane, and talked with Steven and Connie over a few cups of coffee about his opinion on the whole situation. While the both of them were unanimously proud at how much he’d changed since Steven had first started asking him questions about his opinions on the Gems when he was 12, they couldn’t help but feel as if they should stop him from walking out to his bushplane as soon as he finished the coffee. Connie beat Steven, and the conversation with him began as soon as Steven started his trip down the ramp  
“Look,” Connie said. “We appreciate your opinions, and you brought up a lot of good points. But…”  
“But what? We’re related now, aren’t we? C’mon, you don’t need to keep all your secrets from your old Hagerstown uncle.”  
An agitated, but still somewhat genuine, chuckle from Connie. “I appreciate that, too.” Then, a breath; Steven could see it made Uncle Andy tense all the way from the wheelchair ramp. “But I don’t know if you’ve been reading the news lately, although I doubt you’ve been reading just our local paper. But...we’re in, how do you say it? ‘Quite a pickle.’”  
The same dismissive wave of his hand he’d always employ when Steven was twelve and introduced them to the Gems. “Keep going, keep going.”  
Connie nodded her head slightly. “I don’t think I should start with how it all started off, because it’ll be too much then. So let me just start off by saying we’ve been spending the past six days cleaning up the Gem sect from a protest we’ve been having.”  
He raised his eyebrow. “Gem sect? And why did you think a protest would solve anything?”  
A slight glare from Connie made Uncle Andy scratch the back of his wind-torn neck in apology. “”It’s where the Gems live. And we’ve been having the protest because one of our good frie-well, she’s more like a sister to us, because Steven’s mom treated the both of them almost until it was pretty much the same-she died. One of the humans killed her. And the protest was Amethyst’s idea- none of us knew what she’d organized until it was too late.”  
Another chuckle from him. “I haven’t been around Amethyst for awhile, but one of my first impressions off of her is that she’s not the sort of per-not the sort of Gem- did I say it right?” Connie nodded. “She’s not the sort of person, or Gem, to do that stuff. But I’ve never met your friend-sister before. And I don’t know exactly how she kicked the bucket, so I’m not going to be the one to judge.”  
Connie could feel the paprika-red take over her face. “Well-”  
By this time, Steven had made it to the end of the ridge, and gave Connie a look that told her, in an instant, that Steven was the one that was going to handle the situation with better diplomacy out of the two of them. “Hey, Uncle Andy! It’s been forever. Want to take a tour of the town with me?”  
Connie'd spent enough time with Steven to know that off of the podium, his idea of diplomacy was something only those as young as him thought was effective in any way. Of course, Uncle Andy couldn’t say no, especially if that would mean he wouldn’t have the opportunity to show off his skills as a pilot to all the beachgoers on the boardwalk. Steven entrusted Connie with every twist and turn Uncle Andy made down to the tourist traps designed for and by humans. And ultimately, Connie was the only one to know, and ever tell, which flavor from the Big Donut was Uncle Andy’s favorite.  
But the both of them knew, or rather didn’t know until now, that he could make an impression of a seagull’s cry so perfectly that a flock attacked his fries.  
During their trip through the Gem sect, Connie was all too tempted to pay her parents a much needed visit and leave Steven alone so he could reveal the state of it all on his own. But when the first human came into view in a nearby alley with a hatchet from his toolshed in his hand, ready to strike, Connie knew she had to be there.  
Although no one attacked them directly, Connie felt attacked by the expressions that came over Uncle Andy’s face. He didn’t say a word, but she knew by all means what utter disgust looked like. And she couldn’t ask him whether the look of disgust was about the Gems or about the state of housing- either way, he’d deny he had any expression.  
But afterwards, he became still. Although he kept on walking, when the phone in his pocket rang,-his wife wanting to ask when he was coming home-he left it there. His expression became neutral. Then introspective, but only enough for Connie to be able to tell while Steven kept on showing and telling. Afterwards, they heard a call. Steven and Connie knew who it was- someone who’d found themselves homeless after simply being rejected from one job after the other after the other. But they’d already given Uncle Andy a taste of how they wanted him to act, the way Steven was on the verge of tears when telling him about all the shops he’d used to go to that were now under repairs for months. And the both of them looked at each other with the same sigh in their eyes when they’d walked a block ahead without Uncle Andy doing anything.  
But it was at the end of the second block when they realized he’d been spending all that time deftly searching one of his pockets for change and heading back.  
Connie couldn’t help but feel a little taken aback. Never threatened, this was Steven she was talking about...but taken aback. By the time they went back to the plane, the only expression left on Uncle Andy’s face was serenity, of all things. As if he’d been craving to take this trip for a very, very long time and didn’t know it. There was nothing left for him to say, not even a passing remark about how angry his wife would be that he’d be coming home late. He simply paused, gave a slight smile, and hugged the both of them before stepping in his plane and leaving.  
The both of them were silent for as long as it took for them to stop hearing the roar of the bushplane’s engine. But it was Connie who spoke, for one of the first times that whole visit, when they stopped hearing it.  
“D’you think he’ll give anything anytime soon? Or volunteer?”  
“I don’t know” was all Steven could reply with. “All I did was try. All I’ve ever done since I discovered I was half-Gem was try.”  
____  
Other than two more attempts to contact the Diamonds, April 7th and 8th went by with the both of them being a little backlogged by the letters sent to them of all types of opinions, but most of them asking how far along Steven was in recovery and why he couldn’t just use his saliva. Apparently, no one knew what internal damage was. April 9th was spent by them trying to comfort Sapphire, whose friends were now recommending conversion therapy to her from some of the town churches, and Steven, Connie, and Ruby regretfully checking on the state of them to try and hold them accountable for it. That night, Steven held Connie as she cried and put ice on all the bruises she’d been dealt that day.  
They almost neglected to try and call the Diamonds that day. They responded by putting the Communicator on a set schedule to try and contact them every six hours, and then fell asleep at midnight.  
Which is what left them with the Diamonds on the other end at six in the morning.  
Neither Steven nor Connie were prepared for any of it. All they knew was that Gems didn’t need sleep, and all they knew to do was to pretend the Communicator had been knocked down, rush it over to the warp pad, and pick it up when they came to the living room, Amethyst and Pearl with eyes open wide and Ruby and Sapphire unfused- had they been Garnet, the Diamonds would’ve most likely vowed to send a ship down to Earth to take her out personally due to a fusion having caused the current Homeworld conflict.  
“I don’t know what that was about,” White Diamond half-yelled, “but you’ve been trying to contact us for the past six days. Now, can you please get to the point?!”  
They heard screams outside, with Blue clutching her upper arms and doubling over slightly as a few tears came down. In a gesture almost all of them thought impossible, Yellow held onto her, muttered something about how they should’ve put in a better sonarinhibition material in the palace, and suggested the three of them go into another room.  
Yellow Diamond and White Diamond fought for the both of them to go first, with White shooting a hostile word or two at Yellow when she realized she was beat. “Alright, let’s not beat around the bush, as you humans say. We know why you contacted us. Where. Is. Spinel?”  
The last thing any of them needed was hesitation. Peridot was about to speak, but Yellow gave her a glare sharp enough for Lapis to speak for her. “We’ve been finding out certain...aspects of the poison that was sent down with her. I was hoping that all of you would give some input on that. Maybe then we’ll tell you where Spinel is.”  
Everyone, whether on Earth’s side of the screen or Homeworld’s, whether human or Gem, held their breath. Lapis was shaking close enough for Peridot to see; Bismuth nodded at Peridot and held a hand on Lapis’ shoulder until the shaking slowed down.  
The little things, Steven thought once again, that keep war from happening.  
“You do know,” tried Yellow, “that we do have, even in this time, a small ship equipped for blitzkrieg tactics. It may not be able to take out the whole planet, surely, but it will be able to take out whatever small coastal town all of you, for some godforsaken reason, have chosen to live in.” White and Blue simultaneously gave her a look that signaled that if Yellow laid a finger beyond the town, the both of them would strangle her with their bare hands before shattering her. “But we’re all fair-minded here. So, as soon as I give you the information on the poison, you tell me where Spinel is.”  
Steven was shaking almost as hard as Lapis was. But he nodded, and that was all that was needed. No further input from anyone. Not even Yellow anymore, the head of anything having to do with the Gem militia.  
“Alright,” began White. “We admit it. During the Gem War, we did employ biocrystallic methods. Doing that would give us a better chance of winning, considering that there were humans involved as well as Gems.”  
“Well, can you tell us how it works, then?” Peridot figured her relationship with White wasn’t nearly as compromised as Yellow’s.  
Everyone glared at her now. But White gave her a glare that was nearly as hostile as Yellow’s, and she shrank back and sat down on the couch beside where Lapis now sat, exhausted. “How it worked was that any and all organic life would be destroyed, but it would in itself be transferred to inorganic matter. We were only able to make small doses of it in the war, as its source plant proved very...difficult to find, even more difficult to mass-produce. So Yellow did have a few plans of converting that inorganic matter into some diluted form of Quartz soldiers, but there was too little for even that.”  
A pause too long for any of them to comprehend.  
“Anything else?”. Steven this time, letting the sweat roll right down his arm and into his had, which curled into a fist for a moment to let it drip to the floor faster.  
“Steven, dear. Well...there was that one incident, wasn’t there?” It was Blue. Voice still choked, flinching on occasion, as if she were the only one to still be hearing screams. She looked at White, Yellow, White again. “With that poor team of young Sapphires who were supposed to be helping the Jasper on the seventh facet plan the battles for that week…”  
White bit her lip. “Ah, yes, I remember. It was all too bitter of a day…” she let her finger twirl in Blue’s hair until her breathing slowed. “The humans were just as bitter as we are now after some of that poison wiped out their village. Decided it would be a good idea to use it back on us...the poor dears were taken down with their weapons. Bleeding everywhere…”  
“And do you know how Spinel managed to obtain a ship full of it?” wondered Connie quietly. But it was too late. She was under the hook. The Diamonds asked her to repeat what she said, how they couldn’t hear her. So she was baited into saying it again.  
“Of course not!” declared Yellow, who let a hand fly. It accidentally slapped Blue; Yellow reached around and tried to make some sort of instant reparations to her, but Blue replied by covering her cheek and letting herself lie in White’s lap. Everyone could tell White tried not to act in a state of discomfiture.  
“Of course not,” added White. “Why would we think of doing something like that? We’ve already made a vow to Steven when he was fourteen Earth years old, didn’t we?”  
White cleared her throat. “Now, where is Spinel.” Too harsh to be a question. White made a grasping motion with her right hand, used to her staff being there and her being able to thud it on the ground in moments of conviction like this, occasionally poofing a few unlucky castle workers.  
They couldn’t afford any hesitation here, either. “We haven’t seen her,” said Greg, a move that drained all the color from Steven’s face. “She could be anywhere up there. How many people does that planet have...a few billion?”. He looked at Pearl, who was still despondent enough for the Diamonds to notice if they took a few seconds of looking at her, and whispered at her to move on the couch next to Lapis and Peridot so he could stand and block her iew. “Six billion?”  
“Ten billion.” Yellow. Still smug, after all this time.  
“Ten billion. That’s a lot more than we have. I’ve been there before once, and there were a lot of places she’d enjoy. Out on the streets, they have a lot of really cool stuff. Stuff Steven would’ve enjoyed if he lived with you guys instead of her!” Greg made a quick “tongue-in-cheek” gesture; him letting Steven live with the Diamonds would be akin to selling him to slavery in his mind.  
Ruby raised a hand. “And how long’s it been since you realized she’s been gone?”  
“Twenty minutes,” admitted Blue. Then, the color drained from her face as well, and she ran from the room after a brief “she could be anywhere out there!”.  
It was only within a few seconds. White and Yellow sprinted after her, and all was silent. The living room lit under a humming white for a half a minute. No one daring to speak.  
Until there was the squeak of Steven’s wheels making its way to the coffee table. Taking ahold of the communicator.  
And gently, ever so gently, pressing the power button until the living room faded to the relative dark of the morning sun.


	26. 100,000 WORD SPECIAL!

Alright. I’m taking a break today because I hti 100,000 words.   
I’ve only hit 100,000 words on one of my books before, and that was because I was a relatively new writer then and thinking it would be more impressive for me to hit a higher quantity than a higher quality.   
However, I’d personally prefer to say this was the first book I’ve ever written that’s more than 100,000 words long because unlike the other novel, this consists of 100,000 words I’m genuinely happy with.   
Is there rambling in there? Probably. Unlike in a short story, where every word is crucial to the plot, more emphasis on episodic, daily life and character development (along with your cool sci-fi stuff) is put over trying to maintain the plot at all costs.   
And not only is this a cause for celebration, but it is also a mathematic milestone. And luckily, after doing all of my calculations, my goal of 300,000 words still stands. Which means we’re at the tip of the iceberg right now. Despite everything that’s happened...we ain’t seen nothing yet. And while some of what will happen next may be at least a little predictable- something completely unpredictable will just throw you guys off entirely- I guarantee you that you will not be able to predict the bulk of what will happen. At least without a few hours of sitting down, thinking about it, and definitely making a few flowcharts or two. Which I don’t think you guys have the time to do, but considering COVID-19 isn’t over yet, you just might.   
Yes, this plot is quite condensed considering I’m planning out the next five seasons for Steven Universe, essentially doubling the show and making all of what we’ve seen so far just half of the show’s whole content. And yes, some things may go unmentioned. For example, where’s Onion? Where’s Kiki? I can assure you they’re all well and good unless I say otherwise, but there’s just not enough time in the frame of what I’m writing to design character arcs for absolutely all of them when stories have to be made for characters such as Steven/Connie, Rupphire, Pearl, Greg, Amethyst, or any of the other characters. If I could go back later and do that, I would. And I may.  
But that brings into mind another factor...the date at which I’ll be done. At this point in time, I have worked on this story for 193 days, which have all flown by faster than I could’ve ever imagined. Multiply 193 by 3 and you get 579, or about a year and a half. Which means that I should be finished by May of 2021. By then, I’ll be 18 and almost finished with high school. And I’ve started this in the middle in my junior year. Hopefully, my love for Steven Universe will still be as passionate by then. If it’s not, then I’ll be disappointed in myself, considering how much time I’ve invested into this project thus far.  
Oh, well. That’s all I have to say for now, except that in a few days, I’ll be going to Ocean City, Maryland, which is the same place that Beach City is based off of, and I’ll be the area that much of both the show and this story covers. (One of the reasons why I love this is because I’m a relative local, and can travel to Maryland in the span of half an hour. So I’ve come to know a lot of the state’s mannerisms, oddities, and quirks.)   
See you guys tomorrow!


	27. Season Seven, Chapter Eight, Part Two: Nienormalnosc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I am SO SORRY that this took a full week to update. I had a horrifically busy week including lots more writing commissions than usual, getting admitted to the hospital, and having to be on a day-long flight in the process. Hopefully, God does indeed have mercy and I should be able to turn in the next chapter in less than a week (although I doubt it because we’ll be going on summer vacation then). In any event, though, I should be in a much better situation.  
_____

After all that excitement, OJ couldn’t help but pay them a visit on the 11th. He’d been doing so regularly in order to comfort both Pearl and himself, but after some person or another let it slip that they’d talked to the Diamonds, they wouldn’t hear the end of it. Every conversation OJ had entailed some sort of asking for the Diamonds to come. Every dream OJ had about the Diamonds, which happened nearly every night, he felt obligated to share. And when the tipping point came- “Steven, you’re a Diamond. And I know all about you. Why can’t I know about all the other Diamonds?”.  
Of course, then Steven could’ve launched into an hour-long conversation of the other Diamonds’ political history. But he was wounded, as trivial as it may have seen or even been, and his next move then was to scoot off Steven to his bedroom and show him the Diamond Communicator himself. He had to smile at himself-OJ had turned 12 at the beginning of March. It was at this age that Steven was first introduced to life as a Gem, that he thought of himself as anything other than a slightly-more-unique-than-average human. Besides, there was no one for OJ to tell but his deadbeat mom and his older brother...Gene, wasn’t it? Steven grunted a little as he took out the Diamond Communicator from its usual box on the stoop at the top of Spine-the spare bedroom closet. And besides, even if OJ were to tell Gene, Steven would be vague about it.  
And so he was. He didn’t turn it on, didn’t show OJ any of its actual features other than its obvious face, where it projected the image of the Diamonds into thin air. But the mystery exploded nevertheless behind OJ’s eyes the same way it did for Steven.  
Steven was taken aback, at least a little. Even if they were only six years apart, here he was. Married, at the start of a political career that would surely start back up again once he recovered from his wheelchair, and teaching OJ, as if he was his own son, what Steven had been exposed to when he was his age.  
Had he grown beyond what he was supposed to?  
Had he grown too old for the role he had to fill?  
Never mind that- he had grown. It was more than he could’ve asked for when he was OJ’s age- it struck him like Bismuth’s hand-mallet to his forehead every time he said it. He had grown. Humans, even half-humans, even Gems were supposed to mature eventually, weren’t they? Amethyst wasn’t supposed to stay in her 3-and-a-half foot, toddling, rock climbing self forever. Even the other Diamonds had to have been immature at least at some point before taking the thrones.  
He had grown, as much as OJ was now gingerly taking the Diamond Communicator into his hands and giving it back to Steven.  
And Steven was so lost in the same world as OJ that the consequences of it, inside and outside their homes, didn’t even come to him until he saw Connie’s half-frightened, half-angry expression at the bottom of the stairs.  
But none of the consequences displayed themselves quite yet as the Diamonds hailed them the next day. It was mostly Blue, worried about the world that was surely imploding on her. Yes, White was launching a search party for her in most of the crowded places on Homeworld, but she could be anywhere, especially in the crowds... And after a period of her crying, old wounds beginning to fester, or at least look as if they were, she disclosed the situation to Steven.  
“They’re dying, Steven. The riots are...I think they’re getting out of hand, dozens and dozens of them are being shattered. And they don’t know why. All the surveillance can pick up is the crowds. They could be trampled by the crowds, or...I don’t know if our Rubies or our Quartzes are being gentle with them of if they’re causing every one of those deaths…”  
As Steven attempted to comfort her as much as he could from the other side of a screen, he took a glance at Connie. The both of them knew that if the deaths were going to continue to pile up like this, the Gems would quickly evacuate. And as long as Rose Quartz were to remain in their memory or even in their mythology, Earth would be the most appealing planet.  
But there had to be places other than Beach City where the tensions weren’t as severe, right? There was Baltimore, for starters- they didn’t hear more than a few passing complaints about the Gems’ lifestyle. And more and more Gems were compressing themselves into the North, although much of the cities there were already prime to burst even before the Gems started migrating.  
That is, unless Beach City was a model of what that tension would look like across the planet.  
_____  
April 18th, there was still nothing. Steven began a series of calls to OJ asking if he’d told anyone yet about the Diamond Communicator, but all that was there as evidence was OJ’s continued promise to keep his lips sealed.  
At 2 in the morning, him and Connie sat up in bed. Almost simultaneously, only a few minutes apart, they hunched over, got themselves to the bathroom as quickly as they could, and heaved. After Connie was finished, she rushed downstairs, ransacked the fridge for any remnants of what they may have eaten. Sent it to Peridot to see if there was anything there that may have been poisoned. But that couldn’t have been true- it was a hotdog and macaroni casserole sent by Greg. Unless he was the perfect traitor- Connie had to dismiss it. Life wasn’t her books. She’d learned that a long time ago, but had learned it further as soon as she started her political career with Steven.  
The next hour was spent mainly hugging their bellies and asking each other if there was anything else they could’ve possibly eaten before Peridot came back to their house, practically screaming out the results.  
“Negative! No likely human poison, no cyanide, no arsenic like you had before, no lead, no-”  
Steven had to work to shush Peridot before he thanked her, asked her a few half-hearted, half-sleep-slurred questions about how Sadie was doing with the pills Peridot had given her, and made his way up the stair lift to his waiting bedroom and waiting Connie.  
That is, after he tried to convince his heartbeat to slow down for an hour.  
He wasn’t in any danger now.  
_____  
April 20th, there was one more call from Blue, despondent about the situation on Homeworld and how sick she was of playing this resource game, and one more call from Gene asking Steven if he knew anything about this “Diamond Communicator” his little brother was babbling on about.  
Steven was growing restless. Even with the leg exercises assigned to him by both his physical therapist and Connie’s mother, he found them bobbing up and down, wanting so badly to walk again, even if it was just a few steps down the beachline. He even decided to try it once in the middle of the night, which was nothing less than disastrous- the both of them spent a half an hour talking about whether Steven broke anything or if it was just a bruise.  
That afternoon, though, Connie realized she was growing restless, too. Neither of them were very good at planning out large itineraries, but Steven was better at it than Connie. Another half an hour later, Steven’s feet were on the pedals of his own van for the first time in months. That was until they started getting on Queen Anne Highway and Steven’s legs began twitching to the point to where they were swerving in Salisbury.  
It took them hours, on top of stopping in Silver Spring for dinner and feeling the almost uncanny similarity to DC. By the time they got to Hagerstown to see where Uncle Andy had built another barn for Lion, it was almost dusk.  
But it was worth it, so much more than worth it, for Steven to be able to say hello to him again, to tell him everything he could ever think of worrying about since the last time they both saw each other, to be able to climb on his back and dent his feet into Lion’s shoulders and ride, ride like the ever-demanding wind.  
And that night, Uncle Andy gave a few hundred of his petty cash to help out with the cleanup efforts.  
_______  
Them driving back took them until 1 in the morning. No one gave George Handley that information- he would later chalk it up to the providence of the Lord, which had served him all his life and would serve him until the day he died.  
He hated to admit this, especially when his wife, Margaret, pointed it out. But nevertheless, George did possess parental intuition, which he often liked to dismiss as “motherly instinct”. And when his daughter, Roseanna, talked to her friend OJ, there was something off about it. There was something off about it- he never liked his daughter socializing with someone who could burst out at any moment and try to either convert Roseanna to his paganism or try and play the victim card about how the land-stealing whitefolk were the devil himself. But today, it was especially off. Most of the time, they would have discussions you’d most likely have on the beach...how the weather was doing, how much they were enjoying their day, their fear of seagulls attacking them.  
But George was the last person that at least he knew who would shift his attention away from them once OJ mentioned such a thing as a “Diamond Communicator.”  
George pretended to keep an eye on them despite Margaret insisting she would. But nevertheless, he heard every detail- almost. When Roseanna grew bored about it and instead tried to divert the conversation to when the theater “my dad killed Spinel in front of” was going to reopen, George quickly stepped in and borderline-interrogated OJ about the Diamond Communicator.  
“They keep it in their house upstairs,” spilled OJ. “And speaking of Spinel, that’s what they’ve been talking to them about. See, the Diamonds have been asking for weeks and weeks where Spinel has been, and they’ve been lying to them about it, and-”  
George set a hand on his shoulder. Margaret was now nowhere to be found, but had she been there, she would have said his name in a pleading tone a few times, but then eventually leave him to hos own devices.  
“Well.” was all George said. A single word before he sat down on the stairs. He prided himself on making long-term plans, and he’d been doing so since he and Margaret first bought the house. How many children they wanted to have, what they would name the child should they be a boy or a girl, whether they would raise him or her Lutheran like himself or Catholic like Margaret and what seemed like ninety percent of the whole state of Maryland. And it was all foggy, but the plan came to him now. Even if it was half hearted…  
“Well, I’m going to go and tell them the truth, alright?”  
_______  
Living in the seaside in late April meant a foggy rain came down. And the foggy rain meant meant he needed to find a covered porch or an awning. And the need for a covered porch led him to the St. Peter's Lutheran Church.  
There was almost no light other than what the Communicator produced by the time George got to a place where he thought none of his family would scrutinize him. A little place to himself at the back of the church, next to the dumpster. The smell almost convinced a little vomit to come out along with the words he was thinking of saying. But there was virtually nowhere else where he felt this safe. There was always the inside, but he knew that good ol' reliable Pastor Howard would be there. Good ol' inquisitive Pastor Howard.  
He didn't get a reply immediately, but he had no idea why he expected to, at least for the first five minutes or so.  
When the communicator did activate, though, this time with only Blue at the other end, he felt something he didn’t know he had the ability to feel. Not quite an emotion, not quite an omen. But it was the feeling of him embracing an entire culture without the need or the opportunity for him to come kicking and screaming into it, to drag himself and his family away from it. He’d experienced it a few times in his life..once when he met a child in his newly-desegregated class who was the first “browner” person he’d ever seen, and once when he was in college and studying “abroad” in Chinatown in San Francisco all the way on the other side of the coastline.  
And all of that with Blue’s face and her room in the background.  
“What-who is this?”. Her eyes shifted from her typical almost-melancholy to all-out fear. Raw, spread-out, unabashed. “And how did you get to the Communicator?”.  
Nothing from George. How could there be anything to say when there was so much for his eyes alone to process?  
Soon, Blue’s pleading became more demanding. But it was only at the, “if you don’t stop...glaring at me the way you humans do, I’ll have to get my sisters involved in this!” that George thought it wise of him to say anything.  
“I know where Spinel is!”  
Blue was taken aback. .It was a simple claim, by all means, and something White and Yellow would’ve undoubtedly laughed at. But White and Yellow had undoubtedly given her the job of watching the Communicator to see if any of the humans replied while they had “better things to do” in terms of operations and eventually, hoping, ending the crisis, at least enough to where they could retake enough of their resources.  
“You...you do?”  
“Yes,” he replied.  
All was solemn. The fog hadn’t moved an inch, judging from where the back door was to the church, but both George and Blue could’ve sworn it was closing in enough to almost choke him. And Blue’s almost-complete attention was choking him. Margaret gave him this attention every day, but he was blinder to that. But, he reasoned, it wasn’t because Margaret was too boring or plain...it was because she wasn’t this choking, wasn’t this crushing.  
“It was a horrible day, one of the most terrible things I’ve ever been through. But I’ll tell you even then.”  
Blue nodded. So far, there was nothing for George to contradict himself on. It was all truth. And if he could latch onto that feeling of authenticity, he could carry it through his entire story, make it shine in both his words and how he reacted to them. Bear it across the ocean…  
“We were at the movie theater. It was...it was about a month or so ago, maybe even two. There was a new movie that I wanted to take my daughter, Roseanna to, you see. She’s just eleven, and her twelfth birthday’s coming up. I wanted to treat her to something special, you know? Like fathers do.” As much as he enjoyed the lesson on being human he was giving, he had to focus.  
Blue couldn’t help but smile, but it seemed genuine to George all the same. “Well, I hope the two of you enjoyed it. I sure would’ve loved to see it myself.”  
George followed her smile, but watched her face morph into half-horror when it slipped from his face. “And the both of us were crossing the road, both eyes kept ahead. But then… then we heard this sound of….this horrible sound, of screeching tires….”  
The horror almost fully took over her face.  
George sighed. “Have you ever seen a car before/? It’s like a...you must have spaceships, don’t you? It’s like a spaceship, but much smaller and only on land. It’s much slower. But imagine if one of your ships were to fly close to land, it would be faster than anything. Something much slower than that still could’ve….killed.”  
All Blue wanted to do was to choke out a sputtered, “Killed?!”. For all she didn’t know about cars or trucks or planes, she knew the similarities of being killed and being shattered. That there was a gap on human knowledge as far as there was a gap on Gem knowledge, even if George only chose to exploit the latter. But she found the tears quickly pouring down, and as soon as she did, she wanted to say, “I understand.” But all three words were choked, and there was nothing left now but to let George finish his story.  
“I looked to the right, and I saw…” Now, what did she look like? It charred him. Soon as the memory was brought back to light, he was burned. His mind screamed; it was all he could do to get ahold on it in time for Blue to work through her tears and ask George what was wrong with him now that there were relatively fewer things wrong with her.  
“I saw an alie- a Gem, is that what you call yourselves?- Alright... with...pigtails. Pink ones. In fact, she was pink all over, at least a little. All by herself, walking across the road like that. I wanted to walk over and get her out of the way, but I was definitely way too far to do anything about it. She was so scared when she saw the car to her right, and I could hear her screaming and seeher cover her face...all the while, I was thinking to myself, ‘Stop! Stop, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!’  
And by the time I got to her, there was blood all around her... “  
The tears continued to pour down Blue’s face. She groaned a little, as if she had been punched, then pressed her hands into her temples hard enough that George was convinced she’d fracture her skull if she tried hard enough. She said nothing for a long, long while. Had any of Steven’s companions been there, they’d find it best to look at her. To let her display her grief, and show as much comfort as Lapis had done when the unrest there had barrelled too heavily on Blue’s mind. But George saw everything as an opportunity, as dangerous as it was ingenious.  
Even then, George found he had to gulp what he thought was just a bit of bread from last night’s dinner he hadn’t quite swallowed yet before continuing. He even found himself mimicking Blue somewhat, even if it was just to sell the story. But it was bred from the truth. The truth was when he looked at himself, deep down, deeper than he ever wanted to admit he looked, he looked a spitting image of Blue’s current state. And that bit of truth he had to latch on. That he had to do as he serpentined his way around scenarios. “So I ran over there. The person stopped, got out, yelled out that he was sorry, over and over, tried to see if she was okay right along with me. But I pushed him away as I rolled her over. And what I saw...I won’t let myself forget for the rest of my life. The rest of my life, Blue.  
I rolled her over- she’d been knocked on her stomach. Her stomach had taken the brunt of the hit. I’m not a doctor by any means- hel, I barely got my Bachelor’s with the skin of my teeth- but I knew that if I took her to the hospital, even if all of the doctors tried their best, there was nothing any one of them could do anything to save her.  
So I stooped down and put my ear over her chest to see if there was anything, and-y’know, her mouth, to see if I could feel any air from it. ‘Cause I know- I know you guys, you aliens, you don’t have bodies exactly like ours. But...y’know, it was in the heat of the moment. I had no other way of doing it. But there was...nothing.”  
Now, he knew to step away and let Blue do everything he was terrified of doing. And he was indeed more terrified than he ever wanted to admit even to Margaret as he watched his own tears fall into one of the rain puddles. Insignificant. Because that’s what he was in the eyes of God, wasn’t he? Or at least that was what he was taught. He may not matter to the rest of the world, but all those individual drops mattered to themselves. Not wanting to think about it anymore, he watched for the moment that Blue could regain her composure.  
She never did.  
And as she left the room and as the Diamond Communicator automatically deactivated, George was left sitting there for what he at least thought was the whole night. Wondering what Blue went out of the room for. Wondering if there was going to be any threats from the sky, threats that he’d only ever dreamed about when he was younger and read about now that he was older. Wondering what he was going to tell the pastor if he made his way outside, let Margaret and Roseanna, wondering at what little shred of truth was he supposed to hang on this time.  
Wondering if what he did would start a war.  
__________  
The Diamonds called them furiously that night, arguably more so than even Jasper at the apex of her battles. At first, it was from George’s pocket, the whole of them confused, and the slightest bit terrified, when all that responded was a vacuum of nothing but extremely dark green. However, on the second or third call, they realized, with a little guidance from Blue, that they were in a car, the sunlight just barely visible even by the nearby seafarers. All of them were sent into a frenzy wondering if this was the “exact instrument of destruction” that killed Spinel before their call ended.  
The next, they were back on the close stoop. White noticed quite a few water droplets coming down from the top.  
It took five, even six more attempts before the chaos in the house was at its limit and they were all in the living room again. They recognized George this time, but it seemed everyone and their mother had gathered. Steven, the Crystal Gems, Greg, Connie, even the Maheshwarans. There were even a few random Quartzes scattered here and there who were pining to see the Diamonds since they first migrated to the Earth. All of them had their eyes fixed directly on the screen, with Steven at the front, practically crushing Connie’s hand.  
All of them putting pressure on the Diamonds when the humans were the ones being interrogated.  
“I won’t have us waiting any longer,” half-bellowed Yellow Diamond. “Our collective hearts are broken. More than that, we’ve been lied to. We’ve been lied to, and that’s something you humans will have to work spectacularly hard on to outlive. We’ve been hearing conflicting stories from your end for far too long, and we know what game all of you are trying to play. We simply won’t stand for it.”  
“However,” interjected White before glaring at Yellow with the force of two daggers, “this will result in no violence on our part, as we have recently obtained new information on the matter.”  
“From who?”.  
The world around him seemed to grow more shadows. Even Steven wondered why he had the audacity to speak up at this moment, even with the knowledge that he was supposed to be as much as the ultimate mediator between the two species as much as Jasper was the ultimate quartz.  
And, detecting it, Yellow glared at him even fiercer than she glared at White. “From a humble father. I doubt you know him- his testimony was too authentic to be associated with the likes of you. And by no means was it from your father...Grant, or whatever his name is. Although this father’s name was undoubtedly close.”  
Oh, God. George.  
There was no instinct behind it. Would Steven learn it with age? Even if he did, he’d most likely have a lifespan of one hundred fifty, two hundred years given the fact that he was half-Gem. He’d have all the time in the world to learn, but none of that time mattered in this one moment. “Don’t listen to him! He’ll lie to do whatever he wants to do!”  
“How do you know that?!” retorted White, standing up to her full height. The camera panned directly to her face. Amethyst couldn’t help but smirk in the midst of all of this, although she’d learned to keep it quiet enough that no one reacted. The Diamonds had gotten themselves a servant. All while their own citizens were dying in riots right outside their palace gates, riots so disastrous they’d manage to stop up their resources to the point to where it was comparable- but by no means similar- to the war. “Do you know him?”  
“Yes,” interjected Connie, scaring Steven enough for his entire body, not just his legs, to flinch. The room maintained its level of shadows, the ocean’s waves, throbbing at a constant, deliberate, unhurried rate providing a heartbeat that gave Connie strength to make it a replacement for how quickly hers was beating. “I’m going to speak for Greg because none of you will believe him no matter what he says, but he’s a very religious man. He’s been that way since he was a child. He goes to church every Sunday- that’s why we haven’t been contacting you on that day.” Ah, that same feeling of authenticity that George felt he could attach himself to. Except the difference between her and George is she’d been in the world of politics. She’d learned to trudge on the path every competent, or at least experienced, politician went on. She’d trained herself to latch onto it to refract the truth into the best possible light when she took over for Steven during his speeches, to sneak past her own parents to visit Steven when they were children. “George isn’t his friend at all. But he is his churchmate. He knows how he talks. He’ll lie to you at the drop of a hat, and by the time anyone realizes it, he’s already done all the damage he needs to. And Greg is afraid of him because of that. He-”  
“Good.”  
Complete silence, on both ends. Even Blue, who was more introspective than the other two Diamonds combined, looked at White with confusion before she did slight anger.  
“It’s good that he’s afraid of him. Someone with that much lack of honor should be afraid of someone who displays that much authenticity.”  
“He’s my father,” reminded Steven, before the tears leaped up to his throat and he unleashed the worst verbal weapon he could think of at the moment. His mind was reeling, reeling with plans to find where George was. To take OJ and Gene into a room and not allow them to leave however long that he needed to, to ask for names, addresses. Vindication was a poison in his brain. A poison almost as powerful as Spinel’s, the only difference being that he detested his own and was terrified of the mystery of Spinel’s. Fear was better than hate, at least in his mind. “He loved Pink. He loved her more than any person did, before or after.” He took a glance at his father, who’d directed his gaze at the floor. Sht, he almost said out loud, he’d have to apologize to him later.  
The last thing Steven saw was Blue’s hand covering the screen on the communicator. Practically crushing it.  
“He killed her is what he did.”  
And all they could do was watch as Blue slammed the power button and the entirety of Homeworld, all the screams and sobs and diplomacy thinly under wraps, faded to static.  
_____  
Steven’s apology came after his heart stopped beating one hundred and twenty times a minute, and that came only after dinner and some time with Connie holding him and kissing, running her hands through the labyrinth of curls in his hair.  
And Greg simply took the apology, nodded, and went on his way.  
He would’ve spent a half an hour consoling him. Telling him that it was alright, that every word Steven said about him was true, that no, he didn’t need to apologize on George’s behalf. Hel, Steven wouldn’t even have to confront George. This was a matter that was exclusively between him and George, George and him. A matter that should have ben settled months ago, that he should’ve continued after the investigation. But there was Pearl. Her well-being alone was more important than any sort of half-cocked revenge fantasy he could even try and think of.  
But she was walking around now, wasn’t she? She was talking Steven through this situation now, wasn’t she, even if interaction with anyone seemed to drain her more than usual these days? She wasn’t the same as before, but would she ever? Now was the perfect opportunity for Greg to-  
He would’ve spent a half an hour consoling him.  
But when Greg ran his fingers through his hair, he found his hand was full of it. Full of his hair. That he had to retreat to the bathroom mirror to see what damage there was, and to see if there was anything he could do about it, any more extra cuts or formations he could make in his hair, anything at all…  
The tears came. The tears came, relentless and involuntary. He turned on the bathroom fan in the hopes of drowning himself out before he himself was drowned in it. He was clutching the sink, clutching the fistful of hair in his hand, clutching anything he could in order to stay grounded, to not allow himself to be wrapped around and into it.  
The tears came.


	28. Season Seven, Chapter Ten- Father Dear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer and closer to the ending of Season Seven, guys. I hope you guys are ready. This is somewhat predictable if you've studied history, but, well, sometimes life just happens that way. By life, I mean sociopolitical and interfamilial conflict.  
Also, I did enjoy my vacation. I'll remember it for years to come.

Peridot was lying awake with worry, an occurrence she found that she hadn’t done since she first called her Diamond her, well, favorite word. Six hours earlier, she’d messaged Amethyst after hours spent in vain attempting to discover any other feature, any at all, that she could discover about the poison. As if the both of them were in sync, Amethyst had responded despite the fact that she valued sleep as much as she did Steven. She’d let Peridot into her bed, and in the span of a few minutes, Peridot was laying, pillow to the back of the exo-helmet of her cranial enhancement permanently placed on her and fully functional without limb enhancers, Amethyst in her lap holding her hand, her maze of almost impossibly well-kept hair sweeping a full meter until it even dipped off the bed.  
The thoughts started as she let her fingers roam through it. All she could reach, although she wasn’t quite sure, and doubted that she would be for awhile, whether or not it stretched beyond her need to comfort herself. And it was right on the edge of the hair Peridot could reach, when Amethyst adjusted herself and Peridot’s hand brushed her lips almost imperceptibly, that the thoughts exploded.  
Amethyst did have a partner, didn’t she? Even as lackadaisical as she was. Peridot had been on Earth for five years now; she knew the ramifications of romantic relationships, at least to a basic extent, by this point. She seemed to have a new one every week, Lester, then Pete, then Meghan… but the point was, as far as she knew, romantic relationships were supposed to not be intruded on by anyone, under any circumstances. Even in the dull, arguably primitive, utterly human realm of physical touch.  
And that was just the basics. Back on Homeworld, even intimacy this vague would mean a full-scale shattering, regardless of the amount of time she’d spent in service or at the fact that she’d spent a large period of time under Jasper’s supervision. It was a boon, even more so, that she’d been taken captive by the Crystals, undergoing that slow but undeniably profound friendship, whether conscious or not. Who cared about the possible harm they could’ve put her in, or the times that the Gems laid a few good, solid blows on her body during an hour or two when Steven wasn’t in the immediate vicinity? And besides, even if an act like this were to be discovered by the Diamonds on Homeworld, and even if she were to survive, she’d end up homeless, spending centuries eking out enough pien to be able to rent a ship long enough for her to tunnel through all the way to the Solar System…  
And besides, the work she was doing here was good. That was by no means deniable.  
But what about Sadie…  
It was one thought above of what she was capable of. She’d spent at least twenty-nine or thirty hours spent in the lab, trekking in vain around patterns of thoughts that only left even a mind such as hers dazed in the end. Only just now have told Sadie to report any symptoms she may have. But she’d told her. She’d told her, and that was that.  
And with that, she kissed the top of Amethyst’s hair and let herself fall asleep.  
____  
“You’re right. Sleep does feel...beneficial.”  
She opened her phone’s messaging app.  
“Hey, Peridot. I haven’t felt anything bad, except for an upset stomach. But that happens every time I take a pill, haha. Guess you aren’t a complete nut after all.”  
_____  
Steven was on the way to messaging back three more ambassadors on Gems causing small protests due to the conflict happening in Beach City. He was typing another speech for Connie to say during town hall, telling both the true circumstances of what was happening and that the mayor had asked the both of them to “tone it down a bit for the sake of our friendship” despite them not having contacted him since they bought their condo in DC. But he swore to himself that, out of everyone in his life besides Connie, he would make time for his father. He’d force himself to.  
Which is why he heaved himself on the stair lift in the span of a flat second before making his way to his father’s room.  
It was eleven in the morning. Sleep was as irrelevant to Gems as age was, discounting Amethyst. If someone was sleeping past that time, they’d think it was only a matter of laziness. And, partially due to the fact that he was now sleeping in Spinel’s room instead of having made his way to his small house next to the car wash, it was what Steven first assumed before he opened the door.  
The first thing was a chunk of hair, sprawled out on the floor, from Greg’s already-short head of hair. Steven even had the volition to wheel himself up and feel the chunk in his hands to see if it was real. And even with all of that, Greg didn’t stir. Was...was he poisoned with something? Other than on the car wash’s podunk Wordpress site, no one besides his family or few close friends had any access to any of his personal information. So how did he…  
“I’m fine, kiddo, it’s just alopecia.”  
Steven hesitated. “Oh, you’re...you’re awake. I’ll...just throw this in the trashcan. G’night.” A quick kiss to the forehead the way he’d been doing since he was an infant, and he hurried off.  
What was he thinking?! He could’ve, should’ve questioned him for longer. Asked him what he was doing sleeping in that place at that hour. All the basics. He could write an essay on the intricacies of Dominican Republic bureaucracy, but he missed every basic possible. He didn’t know if he’d survive this brutish game around the globe if it weren’t for Connie…  
But there was a reason why he’d believed it. A reason why he didn’t question it instantly, the same way he’d been doing for almost as long as he’d been kissing his father on the forehead to wish him goodnight.  
Uncle DeMayo had alopecia. It ran through the family faster and fiercer than the Nanticoke River through the western half of Delmarva. It was a conversation Greg had sat down about with Steven as soon as he was old enough to comprehend it. By the time Steven was forty, he said, he’d have to count his lucky stars if he didn’t lose it all already. His hair would simultaneously fall out-  
No.  
Steven had to position himself on the wall so that he wouldn’t keel over with his wheelchair in the middle of the hallway. He had to kill that association, kill it this instant. His father was in no danger of death he....he knew it, he...this couldn’t be a possibility. Not after everything his father had done with him over the past eighteen years, nineteen now at the end of the upcoming summer. But his heart...his heart was beating so fast it hurt as tangible as a sword thrust from Pearl to his arm would, beating so fast that he had to clutch it. Beating so fast so long that Connie eventually came up the stairs, and Steven’s brain had to force his heart to slow down in such a sharp and quick stab that he almost fainted…  
“Honey. You okay? You’ve been up there for a while.”  
“Yeah, I just….”  
“Is Greg alright?”  
Steven let the tears drop down to his throat, waited until they were clear of it until he could speak to his wife again. His beautiful wife; if only he could count the times he was lost in those brown eyes, he’d be occupied for almost as long as a Gem’s entire lifespan…  
“Yeah, he’s fine. He’s just had a long day at the wash yesterday, that’s all. I think we should let ‘im sleep.”  
____  
He spent the next hour fixing a few paragraphs when sending a draft to the ambassador of Japan, who was curious as to how Gem culture was intermingling with human culture. But as little time as he spent exposed to Japanese, there were still obvious bugs in the translation. He’d opened the app, was almost about to call his techie-for-hire that he’d been depending on since DC, when he heard what was arguably the most repulsive sound he’d heard in years.  
It was familiar enough. But it was his father that was retching this time, and before either he or Connie knew it, they were rushing towards the bathroom. All that was left for them was his father, shaking, tears clearly lurking at the back of his eyes.  
Twenty seconds of silence, ten of them with Connie trying as hard as she could muster to hold back the tears in her own eyes. She knew the signs. Her mother had been a doctor since before she'd met Steven. She'd seen countless patients like this. But she'd rather not be the one to tell Steven, at least while he was still in this level of distress. At least not while she was in this level of distress.  
But that didn't stop her from clamping her back to the wall outside the bathroom door and leaving Steven to do all he could to clean his father up while he was still confined to a wheelchair.  
"It's just the tacos I ate last night, Schtuball," she didn't hear Greg say to Steven. "Just the tacos."  
Still, that night, Steven didn't know what to say but the regular "what's wrong?"s that night as he caught Connie crying when they slipped into bed together that night.  
"It's just something sad I read in one of my books tonight, Steven," she said to him, pawing at the whale-covered sheets a little.. "Just something sad."  
_____  
Greg, however, wouldn't be sleeping in sheets covered with anything for hours. Three hours of tests later, he asked Peridot if there were any blood tests he could take for the poison that could be ordered in a regular phlebotomy lab.  
All Peridot could do was half-snicker, half-snort, a habit brought out by Lapis, but was scolded for occasionally by Jasper back when she worked under her. "Not unless these primitive phlebotomy-schmotomy labs that can be concocted here on Earth can detect crystalline microfractures on the surface of your hemoglobins and can stain it properly."  
Greg could've chuckled if doing it wouldn't raise up the bile from his stomach. He settled his head into his arms, which gave Peridot the first sign of alarm; he'd slept until almost noon that day, and she'd passed by the car wash once or twice to visit Steven and chide Amethyst for her handling of the protest. They'd all been talking about a huge day Greg must've faced yesterday, and how tired he must've been. How big the line must've been.  
Peridot hadn't seen any line.  
She hastened the blood test, which drew a word or two of praise from him when most would've ended it at a "Finally!". Nothing was off-kilter other than what would've been expected, considering she was drawing blood from the arm that had been affected by Spinel's poison. There were trace bits of crystallic material there, but nothing too severe. It'd been this way, slightly worse, even, since she started blood tests when Spinel was killed.  
This was good. By all means good. The poison wasn't affecting anyone else so fae. It even brought a little purpose to her soul. Even if there wasn't any way she could satisfy the fact that his little Spinel had been dead for nearly a month and a half.  
She half-groaned, ran her fingers through her headdress. She had to chase any thoughts of emotion from her mind if she were to complete the examination. She had to separate herself from the person and focus on the situation, as she'd been doing for the thousands upon thousands of years she'd been alive. But why was it that she was struggling now, of all times…  
"Hey, Peridot. You holding up alright?"  
She looked right into his eyes. He was in such pain from what she was about to find out; she knew that already. Information he'd no doubt had known for months.  
But if there was any time to discover it, it was now.  
She took out a simple laser-powered scanner that she used by attaching her own gem to and wincing slightly as an electric current passed through it, creating a piezoelectric mechanism much more advanced than anything Earth had at the time. The scan only took a moment or two. His back, his chest, his torso, even his head, as she criticized herself for not examining first. Nothing with significant aberrations, even if there were telltale signs of old age.  
However, as she moved further down, she felt a lurch. Spreading across her entire body. Not at all brought on by the piezoelectricity. The piezoelectricity was different; not only was it sweeter, but it didn't give her hologram of a body feeling. This lurch gave her the sensation that she had limbs, and that, for a split second, they were burning.  
He had a tumor in his prostate that was metastasizing even as Peridot looked. It was spreading to what she at least heard was vital to the human body. By a few simple microtests, she’d found that it hadn’t spread to the extent that it was expected to over the period of time it’d been there. Whatever treatment he could’ve done had already been done. She didn’t know a shred of information as to why he didn’t have it removed when it should’ve been, but it nevertheless did all the damage that it needed to. It’d already done all the damage it needed to.  
Oh, God.  
How was she supposed to tell Steven, to tell Connie? To decide which of Greg’s family members to tell? And how could have Greg held this back from his family for such a long time? His own family? Betrayal. She didn’t think she could feel betrayal ever since the war ended, an emotion universal on both sides.  
But the few tears that rolled down her face didn’t hide any of it.  
And neither was her silence as she left the room, left Greg in the same shadow of death that he’d been in since the diagnosis had first come.


	29. Season Seven, Chapter Eleven- "Dragon"- "Vaor"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the finale for the season!  
It'll take much longer to write, though.  
Happy Fourth in advance!

While the dragon is by no means a native culture to Homeworld, some of the soldiers deployed in the planet's military prescence against the Crystal Gems learned of this, and made this word out of the onomatopoeic noise they interpreted dragons to make. ]

On April 28th, Greg didn’t get up until 2 in the afternoon. And he would’ve resolved not to get up again until later if it weren’t for the fact that Steven and Connie had driven themselves over. He was running from something; everyone knew that, especially Pearl, who’d come into his room hour after hour to ask him what.  
And by the time Pearl had, completely out of instinct, gathered everyone in the living room, that same terrifying, terrified look on her face that she’d first gleaned during those first few days after Spinel had been killed came back.  
All was quiet. All was still.  
The Omnitransmitter could’ve come on. Steven’s work phone could’ve rang ceaselessly from the ambassadors from Indonesia, Norway, and Tanzania. There could’ve been another riot in downtown Beach City, the tired tourists running from their hotels and either joining in or resolving never to come back for the next five years.  
But no one dared move from the living room.  
And it was doubly so when Greg came his way down the stairs, Pearl taking him by both his hand and shoulder.  
“Kids.”  
It was only then, in full view, that everyone took a glimpse at how much whatever he was going to speak of had taken a toll on him. His already borderline-buzzcut had left patches that may as well have been bullet holes to everyone else. His eyes were puffy; that they’d seen when he was either practicing long hours into the night or taking care of a sick Steven when he was a child, but not nearly to this extent. He was slightly hunched over, almost toppling when Pearl came closer to his side.  
“Guys. Kids. You’ve been such good kids... I...I…”  
With each “I”, he became deconstructed. The tears didn’t come as swift as Greg wanted them to, but they ripped apart his voice nevertheless until it became a screaming, gravelly noise brought on by days of vomiting. The world spun and ripped its way out of his attention, the home he’d been to for the past twenty-five years or so shattering and putting itself back together again. It was only when it was shattered to the point of the rest of them being so far, so far away that he thought that he wouldn’t be able to talk to them, truly talk to them even if he tried. Which is where he found his opportunity.  
“I have cancer.”  
No one thought of what to say. But in an instant, everyone thought of what to do.  
“I don’t...I don’t think you’re, heh, gonna have to worry about taking care of me when I’m old...if my chemo doesn’t work out, they don’t...they don’t think I’m gonna see 2030, I…” he was choked, and the world made its way to its feverish shattering again, and he was closed off from the rest of them.  
Pearl was the one everyone flinched at before their individual reactions. She let out a half-scream, half-groan before running, running, running as fast as her legs could take her.  
All Steven could do was look at Connie, then look at his father, then look at her again, then look at him, rocking back and forth, practically tossing himself to the floor to the point where his knees bruised. He dropped down, clutched his sides, took his nails and scraped into them, up and down, up and down, letting out a wobbled, “No, no, noooo, no! Nono! No!”  
All Connie could do was watch him, cover her mouth in an attempt to soothe the feeling of strangulation in her throat as her own tears just began to fall.  
All Amethyst could do was ask one word, “Cancer?” ever so quietly, all while looking at the same floor Steven was ripping himself apart on. But she knew that, out of every Gem, she was the one most steeped in human culture, and therefore, the one most steeped in human medicine. And when she found the first tear slip into her hand, she clenched it before she felt the rest fall on the middle parts of her fingers.  
All Ruby could do was ask if it was true, then insist it couldn’t be true, all while Sapphire was leaning on her shoulder, seeing futures that disabled her from comforting anyone.  
And all Rose could do was watch from afar, at least in the view of those who believed in some sort of afterlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this was so sudden. There was a death in the family due to cancer (one of my uncles named Greg, actually). I needed a way to vemt


	30. Season Seven, Final Chapter

The skimmers had barely crossed the middle of the planned pathways on the Atlantic’s horizon that they ran each morning, without fail, in order to seize the day’s first and best catch, both because the fish had significantly poorer vision first thing in the morning and because once their bellies had been filled with chicken-neck bait, they wouldn’t be eager to jump up again for them any time soon. It was something learned almost the first day by the apprentices, just fresh out of high school, about Steven and Connie’s age. The seafarers had barely noted their twilight when Steven gave the order.   
“We need to address the public about Spinel’s death, Connie.”  
She groaned, attempted to adjust herself in the sheets.  
“My God, Steven…”  
Tears were streaking their way down her cheeks, on her pillow, from what Greg had told them that previous night, wiped over and over again by her husband. She half-clawed at the sheets the way she normally did when it was time for her to get up, but found it too early and opened her eyes in slightly more alarm as her arm quivered uselessly. “Defibrillation” popped up in her mind before she brought herself to the full knowledge of what Steven was saying.   
“It’s a good idea, but why now?”  
“Because now’s a good time as any, Connie. If we don’t do it now, who’s to say the humans will find it at all relevant?”   
“Yes, but your dad just told us that he-”  
“I already drafted up all the papers last night. Please, Connie, I don’t want any of it to go to waste-”  
“You can say whatever they have to say later on. But right now, your dad needs someone to be with him. Garnet and Amethyst are out doing God knows what, though they told me that they were just going to look for Pearl...Pearl…”  
The last thing in her life, grabbed up underneath her and yanked from underneath her feet like an overgrown rug. Pearl´s name alone convinced Steven to crawl up and grab the sheets next to Connie again. Her name alone almost convinced him to almost go to sleep, with Connie only being slightly lulled by it. But not lulled enough for Connie to hear the last thing Steven murmured before the both of them slipped off.   
“We’re gonna do it for Pearl’s sake...we’ve gotta do it, Connie...for Pearl’s sake…”  
_____  
Greg had been somewhat reduced to the front porch, always claiming to be on his way to the van to drive to his car wash, but never managing to get off of the front porch seat. However distraught Steven was as he attempted to comfort him, however many times Greg chased it off as him just watching should Garnet and Amethyst return with Pearl. They both decided to make one final call to them, with them notifying them of being no sign whatsoever of her. Connie took the initiative to go out with the both of them for an hour, coming back with a half-ghost expression. They’d found her, but she was in no better of a state she’d been than the first day after Spinel had died.   
Soon as Greg saw he, he took her into his arms, kissed from her gem down to her cheeks, whispered to her the farthest his eloquence could go at how everything would be alright, about how the chemo should work, and if not, there were other “things to try”. But even before Pearl had settled completely into the front porch seat, Connie was already asking Steven on what the both of them should pack should they go out with their speech.   
Connie ended up taking over the packing, but let Steven tell Pearl the news. But the both of them eventually saw the all too infinitesimal speck of light that came running over and through her eyes before she settled further into Greg’s arms. And the both of them saw the all too colossal realization that if they were going to address the public with a matter so controversial as Spinel’s death, the both of them couldn’t do it alone and with their small group of bodyguards, PR assistants, and broadcasters. They needed Homeworld’s support, through and through. Otherwise, they simply looked like what they were- two teenagers who hadn’t yet graduated high school, had only been exposed to the political field for a year, and had no formal education whatsoever in it. That’s how this whole game was played, Steven realized, as the both of them notified the team of Zircons and Topazes that served as the oligarchical mayor for the gem sect to conduct a sect meeting.   
He spent five or ten minutes on the oldest building in the town’s steps, finishing up a quick and dirty speech rallying the Homeworld citizens. But the closer and closer it came, the more his fingers faltered on the keyboard. The more his breath became hushed. The more he felt his blood rushing through his veins, to his brain, to his gem.   
And by the time he stepped onto the stage, after borderline muttering his way through the first paragraph, his entire personal story burst through, disguised in words tucked into the thesaurus more than in normal conversation. She was my sibling, he said, the only sister I ever knew or ever loved.  
“You know the story of the Beta Kindergarten, don’t you? Even now, there’s entire bands of them, entire groups of veterans from there grouping together in the whole state of Maryland, interacting in something more personal than friendship, but at the same time, something somehow more explicit than romance or anything sexual. And even if you’re the 98 percent of Gems here that aren’t from the Beta Kindergarten, or even the 40 percent that aren’t from any kindergarten at all, there’s still a ring of truth to it. You’ve had to have experienced it in your life at some point.   
And you’ve had to have tasted the pain of having it all taken away from you, even the pain of toying around with the thought of it. Even if you haven’t seen a single battle.”   
Some of them were captivated, sure. But he was only taking in those that had been directly affected by the war itself. But what was more important than that was the look of creeping realization on the rest of their faces. Often, for him, that was better than outright agreement; when the dawning of his message came on slow to him like this, he had time to introduce the core of his message, to drive it home. And the time did come. He told the story of her life. The story of how she didn't understand the intricacies of daily human communication quite as completely as she should have. How she took everything in the human world with as much fascination as she would a T-80 warship issued soon after Pink Diamond had left her. How she was one of the (it pained him to say) few in his life who showed him unconditional love.   
Which was of the utmost importance here.   
"Which is why I ask all of you to help me. I do not ask for retaliation. Neither do I ask for any violence to take place, whether between our species or between each other. I ask each and every one of you to invite each and every Gem you know and come at the end of May- Memorial Day, when we already grieve so intensely for our fallen Homeworld and Crystal Gem soldiers alike due to the war- to Baltimore. Downtown. We'll have a place set up for ourselves, away from all the crime. Seven PM. Right when the sun sets. Please. Do it in person or by social media. We need everyone's voice now more than ever. Our tardiness cannot be excused any longer."  
____  
And the month of May passed.  
Throughout the month, the main focus was Greg's cancer, although there were nights when Steven comforted Pearl when she was visibly shivering with thoughts of Spinel. The whole of his illness came into play. He would lie awake at night, screaming, body on fire where the cancer had metastasized, only able to fall asleep under the concoction of painkillers, melatonin, and herbs that Connie made each morning under the advice of her mother. He’d even suffered a toe fracture while kicking the trashcan in a spirit of play, leaving him now with the same extent of disability he’d had when Lapis broke his leg. This time, Lapis instantly saw this opportunity for retribution and was his primary caregiver then, even overcompensated. During the first half of the month, they were all introduced to his doctor, Dr. Wood, as they learned on her to explain to them the new world his illness had brought on all of them. The chemotherapy had slowed it down, according to her, and was put into remission by the end of the month, although she anticipated it coming back in a few months more. Steven had donated all he had to have his father's prostate removed, and did everything he could to ease his pain and indignity the two weeks after. But instead of prostate cancer, it was now bone cancer, now with the possibility of leukemia.  
The thought of it alone turned Steven's face white. As long as it was in remission, the two agreed, so would the topic.   
Amethyst was reprimanded mostly from herself. She promised all involved she wouldn’t ever try a protest again without the help of someone with more leadership experience. After a quick query to Steven on which allies the country had, she learned the ins and outs of Canada, a little of French and German, in the hopes of emigrating to them and enlisting to their militaries. She didn’t tell any of them, but she saw the face of war. Through every conflict, through even the protest, because of the conflicts and protests, she saw them. And she was terrified. But the others were much more experienced; even if they had only witnessed a few battles, they were all decorated war veterans compared to her. And so she told nobody.   
In terms of Garnet, there were countless debates between Ruby and Sapphire on whether or not she was coming back. Some members of the family argued that there needed to be Garnet during these times, in order to ward off the humans from starting another protest. But there were others who argued that Garnet wasn’t to be used in this way, not being brutalized to a simple guard. And so the dichotomy continued, the same one that Garnet was so well-known for, until Ruby and Sapphire toyed with the thought that the argument was going to go on indefinitely and decided to flip a coin at the top of every month to see what they would do. Sapphire, still bent on calming Greg and reassuring him with the five out of nineteen futures that she saw where he completely recovered, handed the task to Ruby. The coin landed on heads, and so they remained unfused for the rest of May.   
And Pearl was left on the same loop she was with Spinel.  
Little Homeworld was, as always, in shambles. But it was that way since its creation, and it was in much less of a state of disarray than it was in Homeworld. So despite the now barbwire fences that kept a safe distance between them and the human sect, more Gems kept on coming until the population swelled to where the Gems were slightly more than the humans. This alarmed the humans enough to where they launched more conflicts on the Gems and the human real estate business to skyrocket due to the suburbanites inviting their friends, family, and whomever else they could reach on their Facebook pages to move to Beach City rather than flee further inland.   
But life still continued there.   
Bismuth was doing everything she could to finish erecting the fence, expecting nothing, being fueled by nothing but praise from her friends and the satisfaction of keeping the humans on the other side. She’d even consulted Peridot about making the fence bulletproof, but she’d need to consult quite a few Zircons on how to consult a human lawyer or two on the ins and outs of doing that without being divulged as a Gem. Her and Peridot had even discussed the possibility of war rearing its ugly head, which made the both of them shudder slightly when they glanced on the reality of the human-Gem related tensions, even with Steven’s efforts. Lapis, meanwhile, was now seeking a full-time job managing terraforming across former Homeworld colonies who were now striving for their citizens to live on a habitable planet again. But the process was exhausting for her. Because of that, and because of the sheer willpower required for her to authorize a trip to the Warp Pad that far, which meant quite a few embarrassing trips to human territory, meant that the trips were few and far between. In the end, however, she found that she could function better than ever before on less and less water. And in the end, she still had a business going taking commissions for paintings.   
And by the time the month ended, two months’ worth of work looked and felt dried-up for all of them.   
____  
That included the work Steven had set himself out to do as the crowd of over one and a half thousand humans and almost two hundred Gems other than the two hundred that had accompanied him clustered into downtown DC. The traffic, which was already congested to nightmarish proportions, had doubled, even tripled around the area; for that reason, Steven had invested a weighty chunk earlier in the month into rerouting it all.   
Still, the weight of those thousands daunted him, even if Connie was at his side, doing his best at hiding it. Only with a kiss from her could he get the nerve to send the microphone back up to his hand.  
And it was from the pressure of all those around him, turning him into the diamond he always was and he always believed he would be, that he rose from his wheelchair in the midst of everyone there.   
The first half of the speech-twenty minutes- went completely by the script. First, five minutes of nonsense about how the two species were the same inside. Then, ten minutes of his own personal story with Spinel, and five more minutes of guilt tripping the audience back to their own relationships in order to eke out some sympathy.His brain learned to separate himself from the situation at hand, wouldn’t allow deviations, and he thanked it for a moment that he wouldn’t allow it to as the sweat dripped down his cheeks to collide either on the floor or on his collarbone. But his separation made sure that people could creep up to the front without the notice of anyone except those they were shoving through.   
It was only in the intermediate part of the second half that he realized it was George that’d shoved his way forward. It’d taken all the beginning of the second half for him to bring himself back into the situation so he had time for impromptu sentences on how the relationship between humans and Gems was affecting both species’ livelihoods.  
And after he realized it was George, he whiplashed back to the script, even further back than he did when it first began. After George mobilized the group of humans around him and brandished one firearm per person covertly enough for only one or two people to scream, Steven kept on reeling until all he felt was his heart pulsing through his cheeks and all he thought was how he hoped to God that he wasn’t turning entirely reddish-pink in front of the audience.  
And it was all he could do, after a few moments of him almost approaching the end of the script and a few moments of faltering, to point directly at George and to say to those Gems that’d came with him, “Go”.   
That’s all that was needed. Not a “kill them”. Not an “attack”. Not a “napad’ny”, “zabii”, “zmiadz ich gemnas”, or any of the Gem battle cries.   
In the course of a few minutes, almost everyone in the group was dead. Not George. George had escaped along with the first wave of humans that had run away. But seven people out of the ten now lay on the ground, stabbed in one sort of vital organ or another, their blood rushing down the almost unnoticeable hill the road was built on to flow at the bottom of Steven’s feet. It lapped, and after awhile of Steven staring at it, it congealed until it settled into one, but still clear enough so Steven could see his face.   
And it was then that he began to scream.   
___  
Steven would have never dreamed that an entire species could be labeled by so many members of Congress as an insurrection. But in a matter of sheer hours, journalists knew more details about the event than even he did. And in those matter of hours, he found he had to take Connie and his family with him and flee inland to the Keystone State Motel before those journalists stopped investigating DC and started to cross the Bay Bridge. But “insurrectionists” is what they were labeled as by every source up and down and across the spectrum, and “insurrectionists” is what the new insult was as the humans rebutted with every protest material they could find, charging the barbed wire gates any free second they had.   
They stayed in Pennsylvania until June 1st, when the Gems realized that the journalists could cover much more investigative ground than they thought possible. In order to shake them off of their trail, they had to travel, at the very least, two hundred miles per day.   
Even Greg showed no enthusiasm.   
June 1st, they told a few select Gems back at home where they were going; their aim was to push their way north along the coast and settle with circulating around the very sparsely populated states of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. June 2nd, they spent the night in New London in Rhode Island; when they passed New York City on the way, all of them had to hide under the van windows the way they did when Gems were first no longer considered citizens that winter and they had to be smuggled up to Delaware. June 3rd and 4th, their progress was much easier save for in Boston. By June 5th, they’d made it to Vermont, and they created a triangle path along the highways in those states that they could stay traveling in for a few weeks while waiting for the journalists to push through the same level of traffic they’d had to push through.   
Unless they flew, of course.   
June the second, they received a call from Lapis. They could practically hear her shaking.   
“Lapis, Lapis, shhhhh,” Steven said, a little too quickly than he’d like. “Lapis, tell me. Just tell me. It’s alright. I’ve made it so no one is listening.”  
Still, it took two minutes for her to finally calm down enough for Steven to understand what she was saying. But when she did speak, she said something Steven wouldn’t have guessed in a blue moon. “It’s Jasper.”  
Steven felt every muscle in him tense. “Jasper?! How did she know where you were?”  
“I-I don’t know! I was just...just walking, and she took me aside, and she sprained my wrist, and...and…”  
Steven let her alone for thirty seconds before gently asking her questions again.   
“Lapis. What’d she tell you?  
“She...she told me….don’t go west. She told me to tell you not to go west. She begged me. She told me it was for your own good...but how...how can it be for your own good if it’s coming from her... Steven. Steven, I-I don’t know what to do, what does ‘don’t go west’ mean? ‘Don’t go west’, that’s it? Oh, God, what am I supposed to do-”  
“Lapis. Breathe. Breathe.”  
And as Steven instructed her to breathe, he tried going over all the possible plans in his mind. What could have possibly provoked Jasper to come so close to Lapis like this? And, indirectly, to try and approach Steven? He may have given her the most help out of everyone, but even then, he’d killed her and brought her back only to insult her and then leave her.   
All he knew is that he was up north now.  
“It’s alright, Lapis. I’m up north, I’m up north.  
Lapis, breathe.”  
For five more days, the journalists never did come. And so while Connie wanted to familiarize herself with the state and the possibility of settling down there once all this blew over and slowed down, she found she couldn’t. Congress had a bill only labeled “Bill 55-CA-E”, and, for the first time since 1979, it declined that it be televised during this bill. Steven then ruminated over the possibility of going back to DC, although he very quickly realized that if he valued anyone’s life around him, then he was going to have to stay looking at the natural beauty of the White Mountain National Forest for a good long while.   
He valued it for such a long while that he became accustomed to it. He spent five, perhaps six hours wandering around the trails, asking for and being asked for help by the locals. And he began knowing some of the names. He noticed them to the point to where he almost forgot the way people looked at him before he asked, and the way the creases immediately faded with relief immediately after he said a kind word or two to them.   
And on June the tenth, four in the morning, before the hel that came with diplomacy began, Steven decided to take in the fresh northern air. Not that it was any crisper or more pleasant than the air by the sea; to him, it was a crude imitation, but one that he nevertheless had to enjoy to keep his sanity at a decent level.   
He’d made it two or so miles on the trail when he became thirsty, even without the heat. So he made his way to one of the refreshment sheds.   
The owner stared at him until Steven’s muscles tensed. Still, Steven asked him for a bottle of water.   
The owner shook. “We-we can’t, we-” he made his way towards the front of the makeshift door that covered the vending window in front of Steven’s face, but Steven managed to yell once or twice, get his head under and get a good look at him.   
“Hey, hey, why’re you doing this?! The sign says you’re still open! Why can’t you sell me bottled water? Huh?”  
The man’s expression didn’t change even when Steven butted into his personal space. He just watched as the last of the color left his face, as his trembling hands equated the face of Steven with the face of death itself, watched as the last of the world’s normalcy fell into place, then out of place, and into place again one more time, then out of place on and forever more...  
“Because...because we’re at war.”  
“With who-” Steven managed to gasp out before his head was shoved out of the window and hit the boulder with a sickening thud. He groaned; even at his loudest, no one could hear him but the man in the shed. He put his hand up to the throbbing space above his ear before sprinting back to the shed. “With who? With who?!”  
By now, Steven was banging on the makeshift door, eyes only slightly widening at the few drops of blood that now dotted the door from his hands. Still, he kept on going, and when that failed, he let out another, “With who?!”   
Dropping to his knees. “With who?!”  
Wincing as the rocks on the ground dug into his kneecaps. “With who?!”.   
Taking a sharp glance around him, watched as the road remained ceaselessly empty. “With who? With who?! With who?!”  
_____  
In Washington DC, June the 10th of the year of our Lord in 2022, President Donald John Trump, reelected in November of 2020, made the most important decision of his presidency, possibly of his lifetime. Of all the protests that had upended the nation for the last few years and the small portion of Delmarva for one, of the pandemic that had just now ceased spreading throughout the country, of the many international relations he had to keep from hurtling down to the ground, this was the most important decision. For now, his position as Commander-in-Chief was in full force. He may not have been experienced enough, he may not even had any formal education in terms of the military. But, by God, he was going to try and extinguish his threat.   
The threat in his own country.   
6:48 in the morning, two hours after the declaration had been signed into full effect, the nation was in an uproar. Mothers and fathers had awoken their children only to climb in their beds and curl into the fetal position. The belligerents that knew George Handley’s friends were practically screaming for retaliation. The entirety of the Gem population in the United States had gone into a full blackout, the only thing they had the ability to do was to create some sort of symbolism.   
And 6:48 in the morning, he began his speech to the public.  
“Good men and women, good patriotic men and women of the United States of America, we are now in conflict with an unprecedented threat. Ten days ago, right here in this very city, a group of well-meaning humans were brutally murdered by the aliens the public has come to call as ‘Gems’. An elite group of women, it is now clear and present to the American public that they present a clear and deliberate danger to the American people. For this reason, two hours ago, a formal war declaration was signed by me from Congress.   
I am aware of the efforts that have been made on parts of both species in terms of diplomacy, and I feel that my decision has not made their efforts in vain. However, my duty is to protect the American people, and I will do that at whatever cost comes to myself, and I am sure that the American military will protect all of this beautiful country’s civilians at whatever cost will certainly come to them.   
Through this declaration, I hope that our country will not linger in this state for any longer than it needs to, and that it its aim will not be for the sole purpose of warfare, but also for the intent of true and lasting peace, which will last decades and be longer than the peace, the very long peace, which has presided from WWII up until now.  
I place all my confidence, trust, and undying love in the American people, and I pray to God in Heaven that our military will continue to support us the way it has since this nation’s beginning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAYUM! What an ending to the first part of this huge story, hu?  
Let me.know what you think! (And I'm taking a short break from writing this to celebrate.)


	31. The War Appendices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're not interested in what happens in the year of war in between the last chapter and the next chapter, then please disregard this and wait for the next chapter.

An introduction to the war appendixes:  
This was one of the side projects to the story that I’ve been working on since about May. You may notice that the ideas and statistics here may differentiate slightly from the beginning of the notes to the end of it.   
In the original, there were pictures, which unfortunately do not load in the beta version of AO3 (and there’s no way I’m going to post this on Wattpad; the authors there are alarmingly worse than on this site). I’m truly sorry about this.   
Also, if you notice a glaring inconsistency with verisimilitude (it wouldn’t be legally possible for this to happen, what happens in the war could wage war with that country, etc.), please do not hesitate to let me know.   
When I finish with the story, I will post a final, unedited version of these notes, which will be the absolute, definitive, canon (at least for this fic) notes for this war. 

Different fractures of gems:

First of all...what do different fractures mean? And why is a fracture even relevant at all?  
A fracture is how a gem shatters. Dark stuff for the Steven Universe fandom. Knowledge of these types of fractures is an essential asset to both the Gem and human side of the war for purposes of defense and offense respectively. Now, this may be confused with a cleavage, which is very different moved from itself. But the difference between a cleavage and a fracture is that cleavages happen when they’re purposefully and repeatedly done by gemologists and jewelry-makers. Meanwhile, fractures most often happen spontaneously and are thus random, and most often result from the material being dropped on the ground or sustaining some other type of trauma.   
The basic types are conchoidal, fibrous (can also be called splintery or hackly), and uneven. 

Conchoidal fractures break in smooth curves. You’re probably familiar with this one the most, as this is the fracture that glass breaks in. But wait. You might say, “Hey, how come glass sometimes breaks and forms jagged edges, like when I dropped my wine glass?”. Fractures depict how crystallic-esque material breaks across its surface, not what it might appear to be in actuality. A much better demonstration of the conchoidal fracture would be shooting a piece of bullet-resistant glass to where the bullet is embedded inside the window without the window shattering. Like this:

Other materials that break in conchoidal fractures:  
-Shells  
-Lab-created materials, such as this lab-created obsidian:

-Opals  
-Flint (although that’s not relevant at all to Steven Unierse)  
-Naturally-occurring obsidian  
AND PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL...QUARTZES HAVE A CONCHOIDAL FRACTURE.   
A weapon to ensure this sort of fracture happens (and thus ensuring the Gem whose gem fractures like this shatters) would be a regular bullet. Regular bullets, or simple penetrating objects, do great at ensuring conchoidal fractures, and so would be the backbone of the human army, with them using very little other types of weapons, excluding any special units I may decide to make later on. I really wish science worked differently, as the fact that using regular bullets is their best advantage makes me look really uncreative. But if a real war were to break out and if a Quartz were to actually attack you, your best bet would be a gun containing regular bullets and then trying to hit their Gem. Even if you miss, they’ll probably poof. 

And now for the fibrous fracture. Fibrous happen only in metallic materials, and only when they are ductile (able to be formed into new shapes and bent without breaking) enough to do so. The metal elongates a little (this is called creeping), thus resulting in a crazy amount of jagged edges...and a dangerous weapon for the Gems to use in melee if there are no other weapons around, as fighting with the corpse of your dead friend isn’t exactly the most noble thing to do.   
It looks like this:

Materials that have fibrous fractures include:  
-Lab-created materials (such as the one above and some of the cheaper things you might buy at Lowe’s or Home Depot)  
-Asbestos (yummy yummy)  
-Carbon  
-Steel  
-Copper

You will most likely not find any gems with a complete fibrous fracture, but there are a lot of gems that have a partial amount of this fracture. This is true for uneven fractures. In fact, most gems are a combination of different fractures, thus making most gems (or at least those that aren’t Quartzes) harder to kill. Now, does the Gem population realize this? Yes. However, because of the agreements made between Steven and them, they have agreed to rely on immigrants from Homeworld instead of creating their own Kindergartens, where they could work on making a new type of soldier Gem that’s less vulnerable to human bullets than Quartzes are. 

Now, formulating a theoretical weapon that could catalyze this fracture is a little harder than with conchoidal fractures. With conchoidal fractures, the humans have already inadvertently designed a weapon in order to best facilitate that. But with fibrous fractures, you need to initiate a tearing motion. I at first thought of a melee weapon the humans could use, but that would be silly and inefficient all around. So humans could devise a bullet that worked partially like a regular bullet, but had a different material inside it. Instead of regular gunpowder, which simply explodes, the humans could possibly discover a (slightly radioactive) isotope of sulfur or carbon, which is what gunpowder is made of, and somehow facilitate a “second firing action”.  
What happens when a gun is fired is that when you pull the trigger, something in the gun called a firing pin strikes the primer, which ignites the gunpowder (similar to how you light a match). The resulting heat surrounding the burning gunpowder quickly increases the pressure of the air around it until it “blasts apart”. Not only does it push the bullet out of the chamber and the gun itself, but it also creates a blasting force inside the gun in all directions, hence recoil.   
Now, the best way to initiate the fibrous fracture is to repeat this action inside the gem. The bullet could have two chambers, with the rear being used to propel out of the gun and the front to repeat the action done inside the gun once it hits a target. The front of the bullet itself contains a tiny firing pin, a little primer, and a little gunpowder. It hitting the gem is equal to the trigger being pulled again, which creates a blasting, tearing action inside the gem. This is devastating, and would be no matter the species that it’s targeted at.   
I could have the humans use this bullet in general, but this sounds very expensive to make, and most of the enemies the humans will find on the battlefield are Quartzes, who don’t take this whole secondary firing action for their gems to shatter. 

Finally, uneven fractures are just what they sound like...fractures that are uneven and are the most unpredictable of all the fractures. Since they happen on uneven surfaces, jagged edges appear at random, with a vast possibility for irregularities, as well as a huge possibility of debris from either material going each way. These happen when heavier materials such as pyrite (fool’s gold) and magnetite collide against a hard surface. Think two asteroids hitting against each other, or an asteroid hitting a giant, theoretical space wall and breaking like that.  
Uneven fractures can happen with these materials:

Now, for this, I devise that the humans create another type of gun, although this is very silly considering the overall mechanism and the fact that the vast majority of gems in the Steven Universe franchise do not fall under this type of fracture.   
As uneven fractures initiate by the material either by a large, hard surface or by each other, the humans will have to devise something a little primitive, but will nevertheless get the job done much better than any of the two above bullets can. Note that these guns are cheaper to make since they can be damaged easier, but they nevertheless face little use within the army, as there are very few Gems who have uneven fractures. However, Garnets are very unstoppable forces should a human soldier come across her in combat, so at least one soldier in each score should be proficient in using this weapon and have it along with their normal weapon.   
This weapon is basically a hybrid of a regular gun and a slingshot. Instead of firing a bullet, the gun itself is a whole lot more bulkier and chunkier, and hurls a sort of heated rock filled with gunpowder as a projectile. As the rock comes through, however, it damages much of the parts of the gun, meaning it can only be fired so many times before it has to be replaced. The idea is that the soldier is threatened by the Garnet/gets into close proximity of her, fires at her large Gem, and kills her before she can cause any more damage to them. While regular bullets can and will cause significant damage to a Garnet, especially if they contain secondary firing action, the heated rock, assuming most of it hits the gem itself, will cause much more severe damage. And if a human has no other weapon besides this, the heated rock will still cause a significant amount of damage to those gems with conchoidal or fibrous fractures. 

Now, as for the relevant gems in Steven Universe, what type of fractures do they have? And if so, what weapons can be made in order to catalyze these fractures (and thus ensure as much Gem death as possible)? Next to it, I’ll put their purpose in order for me to refer to in the story, as well as what they’ll end up recruiting. They are approximately 300,000 strong, which is very small compared to the total 30 million, at least, that have emigrated to the United States so far. However, the number of migrants are relatively small compared to the 130 million that have migrated across the world, and astronomically small compared to the approximately 60 billion that live on Homeworld. It’s this 6 billion that strain Homeworld’s resources and cause the Diamonds to encourage migration. However, the conflicts that have run rampant across Homeworld have taken those resources again, as well as caused Homeworld to use up most of what it’s stored up. After the war ends, approximately 150,000 of these soldiers would have died, and the vast majority of them having done so after the poison is discovered and the humans take advantage of it. Meanwhile, civilian deaths due to human-Gem tensions have only numbered a few hundred. The vast, vast majority of the 130 million who migrated to Earth survived and evacuated, with only a few thousand staying behind for personal reasons they felt somehow trumped the need for their physical safety. And of the 30 million that migrated to the United States, only about 600 stayed, one of them being the dying Sapphire, who’d understandably want to die on a beautiful beach rather than on a cramped spaceship with an unfamiliar, tense environment.   
Diamonds (the humans won’t actually do this, but it’ll still be useful and relevant to both the story and the human soldiers in it): Conchoidal. Their purpose, although I feel stupid saying this, is to run all operations of Homeworld.   
Quartz: Conchoidal (this is THE most important of all the gem fractures). The main bulk of the Gem army, comprising 60-70% of the Gem Army in this war, these gems are designed for one thing and one thing alone: fighting. However, as Ian Jones-Quartney says, “they can’t all be tanks”, and so other Gems comprise the other forty percent, either out of specific need or simply out of volunteering. High-ranking Quartzes, such as Jaspers, may serve at a higher capacity than the average Quartz. There are about 180,000 Quartzes in the army.   
Emeralds: Conchoidal. These are in charge of air fleets, although I’ll most likely appoint these for the little amount of naval warfare we have on the Pacific Coast and on some of the bigger rivers we’ll find on the way to the Nevada territory where they’ll be fighting. These are very few, numbering only at about 50.   
Garnets: Either conchoidal or uneven, it’s entirely random. But the humans are prepared for the chance that the Garnet will have an uneven fracture, although some Garnets who have somehow found out they have uneven fractures are signing up to the Gem Army so the human weapons enact less damage upon them. The purpose of these Gems are to be commanders, serving under Gems such as Jaspers, Diamonds (although they won’t be involved in this war for the most part), and other high-ranking Quartzes. Subtypes of Garnets include Hessonites, Demantoids, and Pyropes. However, since they are Fusions and therefore harder to come by than regular Gems, and, in addition, normally serve under the rare higher-ranking members of the infantry, I’d say there are no more than 150, with about 100 serving under commanders and 50 volunteering for the regular infantry.   
Sapphires: Conchoidal. They’re not as well-suited for fighting, but their future vision, which works based on the visualization of possibilities and not necessarily what will certainly happen, will certainly help the Gem Army and the strategists. However, randomness, weather, how the humans will act, and other external factors can make this future vision less useful in the eyes of certain commanders. Since they’re so useful in aiding strategists, they number about 125, with 100 serving under commanders and 25 for the regular infantry out of pure volunteering.  
Morganites: Conchoidal or uneven, although a morganite has to be of relatively poor quality compared to other Morganites in order to have an uneven fracture. Morganites are aristocrats on Homeworld and have a very lavish lifestyle, which I believe they’re very unlikely to leave. But, nevertheless, some Morganites want to break free from that life and find adventure, and there are a few Morganite soldiers, but what role they’ll have is on a more human basis; whatever training they’ll put themselves under, that’s the role they’ll fill. However, they may do what certain Garnets do and, if they somehow find out their fracture is uneven and not conchoidal, sign up as a member of the infantry so they won’t suffer as much damage from regular human weapons as their majority Quartz counterparts. They number about 3,000.   
Aquamarine: Either conchoidal or uneven; it’s entirely random. However, as Aquamarines mainly served as assistants to Diamonds (and the few Aquamarines that chose to leave this high-class, leisurely way of life and move down to Earth are either getting regular human jobs or stirring up trouble in the streets), it’s highly unlikely that the humans will encounter one in battle or one of them will want to join the army in the first place. “It’s a Quartz’s job,” they’ll normally say. “I’m too busy doing x, y, and z.” They’d number about 1,500.   
Lapis Lazuli. Technically not a gemstone, but a pretty mineral and relevant to Steven Universe nevertheless. It will have a conchoidal or an uneven fracture- it’s entirely random. Normally, Lapis Lazulis will have a high amount of manipulation of the water around them, making them incredibly useful in combat. There’s just one problem- we’re in the Nevada/Utah/Colorado desert, which has some rivers where the Lapis Lazulis would be useful, but they’re few and far between. So while they’re high-ranking in Homeworld and were incredibly useful during the First Gem War, they’re not as useful in this one and demoted to nurses or medical officials, which is still useful but doesn’t maximize their usefulness. They’d number about 2,000.   
Jades have a conchoidal fracture, at least from my research. As far as their purposes go, they are also high ranking, but have no official function. Lots of them joined the Army for excitement or in an attempt to gain fame. They number about 2,500.   
Topazes are either weak conchoidal or uneven, depending on the Gem, which increases the need for a weapon of some sort to combat the uneven fractures. are sort of high-ranking combinations of Quartzes and Rubies, acting as both soldiers and bodyguards. I’d bet that Jasper controls some of these along with the Garnets. They’d number about 150, all of them serving under commanders, thinking that regular army work is beneath them.   
This is sort of a cutoff point for the upper class and a beginning point for the upper middle class.   
Nephrites will have a fibrous fracture. They stand as an example against the guns with secondary firing action, as their job, while it is involved in the military, is to command spaceships and help to establish colonies on other planets. They keep in touch with Gems that are more directly involved in the war, but do not show up in the battle itself. They’d number a whopping 0 in the frontlines, but if you count the ones working remotely, they’d number about 400.   
Zirconia, like Diamonds, have a conchoidal fracture, although they are the most prone for their Gems to be cracked at this high of a rank. They serve as mainly lawyers, so they take up this civilian job instead of risking their vulnerable gems in the battlefield. Still, about a hundred have, in order to escape from the life of law and keeping themselves safe, joined the Gem Army. Although they almost all died lol.   
I THINK this is where I can draw the line for the upper middle class and can make a point here to display the very slim, but still existing regular middle class (except this isn’t considered “regular” on Homeworld; most Gems, I can assume, are low-ranking. Quartzes are in this middle class.)   
Peridots have a conchoidal fracture. Peridots can be trained for basic combat, by all means, but they mainly serve as intelligence workers and are the backbone of many of Homeworld’s more technologically enhanced fields. As such, more of them joined the army than Gems like Zirconia, but because of them mainly being a Gem created for intelligence, not as much of them joined as Gems like Quartzes. About 12,000 of them were recruited initially due to their valuable positions as technical experts, with a further 10,000 joining voluntarily, including the Peridot we know and love from Beach City.   
Larimars have an uneven fracture, but their numbers are not considered high enough for the human army to consider them as a threat. They are mainly sculptors and artists, but some nevertheless wanted to serve their species. As such, they numbered about 7,000 in the war.   
Bismuths have an uneven fracture and serve as the main reason as to why humans utilized the geothermal gun. Because of their large build, powerful abilities, and tenacious personalities, many of them joined the Gem Army despite their normal status as builders. They number about 18,000 in the Gem Army. The Bismuth from Beach City didn’t join the war, as many of the humans committed property damage across Little Homeworld, busying her schedule for years, even before the war broke out.   
(On that note, some Obsidians joined the war, but they were extremely hard to make due to them requiring a Ruby, a Sapphire, an Amethyst, a Pearl, and a Rose Quartz in order to form, and thus were extremely rare. Nevertheless, some did come, and they numbered about a dozen. They serve the same purpose as Bismuths and have the same capacity for combat as them, if not more due to the sheer amount of Gems in fusion with her. They have a conchoidal fracture.)  
Rubies have either a conchoidal or a fibrous fracture- it’s entirely random, and it’s one of the main reasons that humans developed the gun with secondary firing action. They can and do serve as highly competent soldiers, but make even better guards and live for the thrill of guard duty (if there even is such a thing). Because of their status in Homeworld as soldiers and guards, they make a sizeable portion of the Gem Army, numbering about 60,000. As far as class goes, it can be argued that they’re in either the middle class or the lower class. Their livelihood means that they’re by no means impoverished or struggling to accommodate their basic needs, but others in the middle class, and especially in the upper class, tend to push them around as if they are impoverished. But I’m going to give them the respect they deserve and make them part of the middle class.   
Here is where I draw the line between the middle class and the lower class.   
Spinels have a conchoidal fracture, which also explains why George’s pistol damaged Spinel the way it did. They serve as jesters and entertainers for Gems in the upper classes. However, like Gems who were made for other professions, some of them wanted to serve their species, and they number about 2,500, the same as other Gems who serve in other professions. Kagny, one of Amethyst’s friends, is one of them.   
Pearls aren’t real gemstones, and they’re just more fragile in general, without a specific way they could break. They serve as servants for every other gemstone above, including Spinels. They are physically weaker than many of the more high-ranking Gems, but are by no means fragile or incompetent. However, much of their temperament means that not as many of them joined as what you’d expect, and there are only about 1,000 of them. In addition, they suffer from much ridicule from the other Gems, and would not function the best initially in social settings where a large gathering of them are and in an environment where they’d have to live with them 24/7.   
And finally, Pebbles. Pebbles aren’t real gemstones, either, and the most fragile out of all of them. They do not have a fracture due to them not being gemstones. They serve the same purpose as Pearls, but instead of being assigned to specific Gems like Pearls were, they serve anyone and everyone who needs their help. Since they are the most fragile out of all of them, eand considering their personalities that are identical to Pearls, even fewer of them joined the Gem Army, with only about 750 joining.   
Let’s see if I’ve got my math right.   
Quartzes- 60 percent  
Rubies-20 percent  
Bismuths- 6 percent  
Peridots- 4 percent  
All other Gems-10 percent  
Oh, wow, I almost did it perfectly!

Gems that have a conchoidal fracture exclusively- 65 percent  
Gems that can have a fibrous fracture- 20 percent  
Gems that can have an uneven fracture-9.95 percent  
No fracture- .05 percent

But cleavage is also relevant.   
Why?  
Because it can make gems less vulnerable to fractures. as well as make them smexy  
In addition, it is also one of the best modes of defense the Gems can employ on themselves. What cleavage is isn’t NSFW at all...it’s a purposeful, sometimes repetitive breaking of a part of a gem. You probably have evidence of this inside your own home. Diamonds on wedding rings are the most common gem that has the most amount of attention directed towards cleavage. If a diamond doesn’t have its cleavage cut done perfectly right, it can result in a weaker diamond that, despite its original strength, will crack if it’s dropped on the ground.   
But how does cleavage happen?  
Let me walk you through how the diamond wedding ring above is made.   
First, you have your crystal, brand new, hewn from the geode. 

Then, progressively, the gem is cut. And cut. And cut again. These cuts are what the cleavage is, and they both provide shape and strength to the gem.   
What diamonds must have in order to be made stronger instead of weaker is something called a “perfect cleavage”, which is not the title for a fanfiction I’m going to make sometime in the future. A perfect cleavage simply means that the edges of the gemstone must be cut at perfect 90 degree angles in order to make that diamond shape. 

(If you’re wondering why that looks like two diamonds and not one, you’re correct! Diamonds, and every other gemstone, is made two at a time and then cut in half later.)   
Gemstones that also require a perfect cleavage:  
Topaz  
Tanzanite  
Kunzite  
Kyanite  
Labradorite  
Moonstone  
Fluorite

The following gems require what’s called a “good cleavage”, to where you pretty much try your best to make a perfect cleavage, but it’s alright if you have some imperfections, too. These gemstones are some chill dudes. Or dudettes, considering the fact that they’re all female:  
Alexandrite  
Chrysoberyl  
Prehnite  
Chrome Diopside  
Sphene

The following gems require what’s called a poor fracture. Here, you should actively try not to make cuts at perfect 90-degree angles and instead try to make it jagged, as this is the line in which it actually breaks. If trauma is made along these lines again, the gemstone will not be as broken. Think of it as being scared in a haunted house. You’re terrified during the first jumpscare, but when it happens again, you’re not nearly as scared this time.   
Spinel  
Beryl Group  
Garnet Group  
Tourmaline Group  
Zircon  
Peridot  
That covers a LOT. If you’re wondering which gems cover the beryl group, they are bixbite, morganite, aquamarine, and emerald.   
However, cleavage is, essentially, a crack in their gem. Applying cleavage would have to be carefully done so that it will only cause differences in appearance and not in capabilities. However, a safer option and one that is already used in jewelry is to create a metal shield where the cleavage is supposed to be. Now, many gems already have this cleavage, most importantly being quartz. Let me go down the caste list again and separate the different gems into whether or not they already have cleavage. If so, then only a shield would be needed. If not, then cleavage is needed. 

Diamonds- Only shield  
Quartz-Only shield  
Emeralds-Only shield  
Garnets- Only shield  
Morganites: Only shield  
Aquamarines: Cleavage needed  
Lapis Lazuli: Cleavage needed. VERY important theoretically, especially for the initial battles along the Pacific coastline, but as they advance further into the Nevada desert, the necessity of cleavage decreases along with their overall combat abilities.  
Jade: Only shield (they look about as vulnerable as Aquamarines and Lapis Lazulis, but this is in fact their cleavage.)  
Nephrites: Same story as the Jades; only shield  
Zircon: Has cleavage, but could do better (please nobody take that sentence out of context)  
Peridot: Definitely cleavage needed, they are very vulnerable. I like what Rebecca Sugar threw in there to sort of empathize the fact that Peridots aren’t really built for direct combat like Quartzes or Rubies are.   
Larimars: Shield only  
Bismuth: Shield only  
Rubies: Shield only  
Spinels: Shield only  
With pebbles and pearls, they have no fracture, which means there’s no way they could even consider having a cleavage or specific shield. So they, like all the other Gems, have a generic shield encasing their gem.

My idea for Jasper’s approach in the Secondary Gem War  
After her being told about the poison and where the majority of it was held, she thought it was best to create a distraction. Because all of the Gems’ social and political hubs were on the East Coast, she decided to take the West Coast first to distract the humans from the knowledge of the poison, which would be disastrously fatal to the Gems. Her goal was to then move eastward, exhausting the human army by then so that by the time they found out about the poison, they wouldn’t have the wherewithal to do anything about it. She and her army at first stayed on the California coast with the Gem Navy, launching small attacks on California cities such as San Francisco and San Diego, in order to deceive the human army, led by General Tyrone Muir, into thinking that her motive was to obliterate the populated areas. (Note: She will, at Steven’s command, give the humans sufficient time to escape and instructing her soldiers to take whoever they can find as prisoners of war rather than killing them on Paradise-like facilities modeled after Pink Diamond’s garden on specific ships orbiting the planet. Otherwise...yeah, the war would be a whole lot worse.) But slowly, teams of ships, densely-packed with poofed Gems for storage space, started making their way towards Oregon and Washington while Muir’s army was distracted fighting Jasper’s offense in the Pacific. By the time the whole of Jasper’s army started moving north after doing considerable damage on the cities, it was too late- much of Muir’s resources had been exhausted, and the Gems were beginning to unpoof by the thousands and take the territories. All of this takes place from April 2022-March 2024, and is nicknamed the Second Lane Initiative. (I did this as a reference to Jasper, Oregon, which is in Lane County, although the Second Lane Initiative is meant to mean she took another lane, the offense being analogous to a highway.) All of the subsequent battles are named after which cities they took place in.   
By the time the Second Lane Initiative was over, all of the scribbled-in territories were taken by the Gems. Note that the territories that were “taken” meant that they were still under United States jurisdiction; they simply had more cultural influence by the Gems, and humans were allowed to speak any language they wished. This cultural influence means more and more Gems migrated from areas such as the Midwest and the South, with the sociopolitical hubs only becoming slightly less populous. 

The arrow pointing from California north are the territories that they took in 2022; they started off in the city of Vallejo, California, and then moved up to the United States-Canada border.  
The arrow pointing east are the territories they took in 2023, starting with Bellevue, Oregon, taking all of Idaho and Montana and stopping at the Montana-North Dakota border.   
The arrow pointing downwards to the left are the territories they took in 2024 up until the end of the war (I forgot to add Wyoming, but they took that state, too.) Jasper was intending on taking Utah and Colorado in order to take advantage of the high concentration on gems there, but things started going downhill once they hit Carson City and were given a vial of poison during the battle there. 

So, to have a more specific timeline... (Note: They gained about 72.5 miles per month.)  
March 29th, 2022-War is declared  
April 2022- From Vallejo, California (entering in from San Pablo Bay) to Clearlake, California  
May 2022-From Clearlake, California to Corning, California  
June 2022-From Corning, California to Willow Creek, California  
July 2022- From Willow Creek, Callifornia to the California-Oregon border  
August 2022- From the California-Oregon border to Canyonville, Oregon  
September 2022-From Canyonville, Oregon to Cottage Grove, Oregon  
October 2022-From Cottage Grove, Oregon to Albany, Oregon  
November 2022- From Albany, Oregon to Portland, Oregon, ending with the Battle of Portland  
December 2022-From the end of the Battle of Portland to the Oregon-Washington border  
January 2023- From the Oregon-Washington Border to Bellevue, Oregon; in the middle of January, they end their northern campaign and start heading east towards the Montana-North Dakota border. They proceed east and end the month at Wenatchee, Washington.   
February 2023- From Wenatchee, Washington to Spokane, Washington/ the Washington-Idaho border  
March 2023-From Spokane, Washington/the Washington-Idaho border to Polson, Montana, shredding through most of the state of Idaho due to the sheer lack of people. In addition, they plant crystal-filled potatoes along the way (since this s naturally-occurring, it’s only a matter of selective breeding) in order to further dampen Idaho’s economy. Here, their ruse to trick the humans into thinking they’ll proceed further into California ends, and the army does a mass evacuation. By the time the humans realize that the Gems aren’t going to decimate California and the humans try to mount an offensive in Oregon and Washington, it’s too late to stop the Gems, and some have even gained a foothold already in Nevada and Utah. At this point, the Gem military is at its absolute peak. They move their way northeast, but they’re not sure where they’ll move; the humans think that they’ll keep on heading east and towards places such as Illinois and New York, which are incredibly populated. Some think they’ll head south towards not only the desert states, but states such as Texas and Florida, but are not sure of their motives other than to attack more populated human areas. They have no idea that the Gems are trying to utilize the huge crystal deposits in the desert states to build more Kindergartens against Steven’s will.   
April 2023- From Polson, Montana to Great Falls, Montana  
May 2023- From Great Falls, Montana to Malta, Montana  
June 2023- From Malta, Montana to the Montana-North Dakota border. After June, they will stop their progression to the east and instead launch the final maneuver towards the southwest. Their forces from Washington and Oregon, as well as some in California and Idaho (Jasper will join the forces to the west because of them needing assistance more than the eastern forces), will start in the California-Nevada border, with the forces to the east proceeding their way southwest, cutting through Wyoming to reach the top of Utah, and thus the beginning of the huge amount of crystal deposits. Note that starting in Oregon, they’ve already started storing them in the territories they’ve already gained to use later; however, it’s only in Utah and Nevada that they’ll have access to enough that creating the Kindergartens will be worth it in terms of resources, both made in territories occupied by Gems and some covert shipments from Homeworld.   
July 2023- From the Montana-Wyoming border to Douglas, Wyoming. Meanwhile, from the western front, they will start in the California-Nevada border and proceed as far east and as far south as Round Mountain, Nevada. They’ve taken everything from the top to Round Mountain. Here, the western front will rest and regather due to the huge amount of resources. The eastern army’s lost a huge amount of resources since it first started gaining territories, so the western army is sending whatever surplus it has to the eastern army, which...won’t end well. Jasper knows the risk she’s taking, but sees how far the humans are and sees how desperate the eastern front is, and sees no other option. Tragically, the humans advance farther than expected due to a switch of leadership down in the ranks the Gem Army had know way of knowing about, and the Gem Army, while prepared, isn’t quite as prepared as Jasper wants them to be. This is one of the key factors towards the humans actually winning the war in the end.   
August 2023- While the western front stays put, Jasper goes back to the eastern front for now and helps them go from Douglas, Wyoming to Creston, Wyoming.   
September 2023- The eastern front continues to be shipped supplies and moves from Creston, Wyoming to Green River, Wyoming.   
October 2023- The eastern front moves from Green River, Wyoming to literally FIVE MILES away from the Wyoming-Utah border, where they can start acquiring enough to build their Kindergartens. However, the humans discover where the main Gem Army is and launches a brutal offensive that goes after their already stunted resources. An exasperated Jasper orders the eastern front to stop so the supplies can remain in the western front, goes to the western front, and helps them fight against the humans. However, the humans are too overwhelming for the Gem Army.  
For 6 months, this continues, with both sides almost ready to give up. That is until the poison comes in. The Gems begin using it and actually start gaining ground in Nevada, starting some small Kindergartens along with the converted humans. Everyone thinks the humans are going to lose until the humans discover its lethality to Gems. The Gem Army gets DECIMATED, Jasper oofs herself, and the rest is history. 

Now, for an EVEN MORE specific timeline…  
March 29th, 2022-Declaration of war  
April 1st-15th, 2022-The armed forces scramble to get going and refreshes the tactics brought on during the Gem War. They use melee weapons for now, but start to establish places where they can manufacture and distribute modern weapons, most famously the pisdokris. In addition, they also steal some weapons or simply purchase them. This makes it to where the Quartzes are armed with decent weapons, causing them to have to use more intensive tactics and intimidation in exchange to their lack of weapons. This is one of the reasons why the Vallejo Massacre was, indeed, a massacre.   
April 16th, 2022- The Vallejo Massacre, which lasted for 6 hours from about 7:30 PM-1:30 AM. Since they’re attacking from the west, and the sun sets in the west, they want the sun to be in the humans’ eyes as they mount their offensives towards them.   
Some stuff on Vallejo.  
What do you get when you put a formerly homeless veteran who is insatiably power-hungry into the reins of a war suddenly? And what do you get when thousands of OTHER veterans arrive who would also enjoy the prospect of war? Some...very questionable things during their first battle. More than questionable.   
In Vallejo, it’s an all-out massacre. Approximately 50,000 civilians, or 40 percent of Vallejo’s entire population, are killed. This immediately sets America’s eyes on California, which provides another reason that they either don’t notice or ignore the forces when they start to move north. No massacre in this scale would ever be done again. 15,000 troops were sent, each killing 3 or 4 citizens. About 12,000 troops were sent on the American side, so they were outnumbered and surprised, but not badly. While the Gems were more superior in numbers, the humans were more superior in weaponry. At least for now.   
The Vallejo Massacre can be also called the San Pablo Massacre, or the San Pablo Bay Massacre. In any event, if you speak to a human and refer to it as a regular battle, they’ll become highly offended, or, if you’re a Gem, might even become aggressive. The Vallejo Massacre also gave a horrible impression of Gems to the rest of America.   
By April 16th, 2022, more Gems came with more weapons, although the pisdokris would not be put into place until the Battle of Sacramento. The managers of the ammunition facilities claimed they weren’t quite ready, but Eyeball (who was taking over for Jasper at the time) realized the sheer human threat they’d be facing in Sacramento and ordered the troops to deploy anyway, causing them to have a decisive victory. Most of the citizens had evacuated, and most of the Gem troops had calmed down. The humans retaliated by sending more troops, but it was too late. By the time they arrived, much of the territory was overrun by Gems, and to engage the Gems further would be a fatal mistake.   
By 

Eyeball became prominent once she planned the Battle of Sacramento. Jasper was exhausted after the three battles of Vallejo, San Francisco (which turned out much smoother than Vallejo and was actually quite boring in comparison), and San Jose, and so created a quick but flawed plan for the Battle of Sacramento. Eyeball noticed this and created crucial adjustments to the plan, even taking Jasper to safety once when her gem was cracked. (Note that by now, they were able to mass-produce Steven’s tears, or at least enough to ration it out to soldiers once a battle.) During that time, they were stranded from debris, and were able to talk together. This established their basic bond, and they were friends thick and thin until the day Jasper died. 

A comprehensive list of treatment capabilities for Gems during the war (although almost 40 percent of these Gems died or were permanently disabled in the process):  
-Quartzes attempted to enhance their capabilities via irradiation, but those who survived were converted to Smoky Quartzes in the process, which acted and appeared much like a fusion and caused much of their peers to subject them to ridicule.   
-Amethysts underwent the same process, but we're transformed into citrine. Thus, the process for them was little more than them willing to commit to a different appearance.  
-Rubies and sapphires (and yes, Jasper) attempted to enhance their fighting capabilities via heating themselves in a specialized oven.   
-Nearly all Aquamarines utilized heat treatment on Homeworld prior to even their emigration to Earth.  
-Emeralds were shattered immediately upon attempts at heat treatment or irradiation. However, nearly all of them survived being filled with resin from mainly the ocotillo cactus, as well as from other local cacti. This resin not only enhanced their appearance and their fighting capabilities, but also made them tougher to hold onto should they be caught in a stranglehold.   
-All Garnets were shattered immediately upon attempting any kind of treatment.   
-Nephrites had different kinds of treatment capabilities depending on whether or not they were rushed and to what degree. Most of them could endure penetration with special polymers in order to better undergo the differentiation of light refraction. Slightly rushed Nephrites only had the ability to undergo treatments for cosmetic purposes, which very little had reason to do, and moderate to severely rushed Nephrites were too fragile to undergo any kind of treatment.   
-Jasper successfully underwent dye injections in order to fool her soldiers into thinking she did not suffer from corruption.   
-Morganites were able to withstand slight heat treatment (AKA the desert heat).   
-Pearls underwent all kinds of treatment, even in a compulsory manner in some ways. They were bleached, dyed, and even exposed to irradiation, even for cosmetic purposes. Some experienced enhanced fighting capabilities, but not much at all.  
One of the most essential concepts to grasp in order to understand the Secomd Gem War, or even the entire Gem civilization as a whole, is how crystals are grown. Firstly, it is an incredibly difficult process, as there are almost countless amounts of variables. Because of this, not only is the synthetic gem-making process highly regulated at least in developed nations, but it also has multiple methods in case one does not prove to be effective. The first method, and the one the Gems mainly use, is called vapor growth, or narodziny in Gem, which translates literally into "birth'. In vapor growth, the gaseous form of the desire substance reacts with a catalyst, which not only speeds the reaction, but also aids the solute in question in essentially packing itself into the allotted space. While the gaseous forms are very volatile, its products are extremely so, and the products are isolated from living organisms and cooled. While humans isolate the products in a chilled room, Gems dip the products in a protected case surrounded by liquid nitrogen from their prospective colonies' atmospheres. While Gem technology has now allowed for any sort of shape needed for the crystals to form in, human technology is limited to the crystals forming into little more than aggregates of thin lines, as you witnessed in Chemistry class. The second method is not utilized by Gems out of respect, but was considered for utilization by humans all throughout the Second Gem War. Called Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD), its only application is for diamonds. This process is entirely the same as it is for vapor growth, with the only exception being exposing the substances to a series of filaments. In every other gem substance, which is not mainly composed of carbon, the process is inhibited by the filaments. The third method, used in the rushed Beta Kindergarten and recreated in my mother's womb, is called melt growth, and is based off the process by which drops of water form snowflakes, which are, by all means, crystals. In this simple process, colored molten metal is frozen. However, this does not produce sentient Gems, so it is only used for jewelry-making purposes. However, in the Beta Kindergarten and my mother's womb, the liquid form of the gem freezes into place. This process allows air to squeeze into parts of the gem, causing parts of the gem to become defected or, in extremely rare cases, to enhance the Gem's growth, although this has only been witnessed in jasper.   
Trump spent most, if not all his time, from 2021-22 involved in the Space Force. In terms of its success during the war, it was surprisingly limited to a few diplomatic conversations, mediated by Steven, between the United States and Homeworld, with both sides agreeing on a treaty that no spacecraft of any kind will be utilized under any condition, with the reward of financial aid from the United States in Homeworld's rebuilding. The Diamonds took this offer, them having little to no aid otherwise and little to no wherewithal for any sort of spacecraft to reach Earth (yes, this means prospective Earth migrants are trapped on Homeworld). Any fragments of the Hand Ship left were quickly disposed of by the government, to Steven's chagrin.  
(This does not apply to the war, but I found this to be very cool- a type of fusion does exist when it comes to gem-making! Flame fusion, created by the father of synthetic gems Auguste Vernueil, is when an extremely small concentration of the powdered form of the desired substance is combined-fused- with a catalyst or dye and burned over a hydroxygenated flame. The resulting melted droplets are isolated in a boiler and left to cool as usual. And you CAN use this method, or any of the other gem-making methods, to fuse gems!)  
However, despite how ineffective the Space Force was during the Second Gem War, it taught not just the United States, but most UN member countries to unite (much to Trump's utter horror) and make more sophisticated their space forces. For this reason, it was very difficult for any members of the new planet to come back to Earth.   
The Gems have such powers and enhanced properties due to their irradiation, which in fact changes the entirety of their crystal lattice.   
After fifteen years, Homeworld finally did recuperate from its conflict, but it was so badly devastated by the population emigrating to different planets that it became a shell of the empire it used to be, but still very influential in interplanetary government affairs- think colonial vs current England.   
In terms of grenades, the Gems learned to perfect the golf ball grenade, which was in use from the 1960’s-80’s and referred to by soldiers as a “mini frag”. Its small size meant that it went almost completely without notice, and eventually, during the end of the war, the Gems also put in a beta program to where the grenades would have the same change in refraction of light as Gems themselves. However, this backfired, with dozens of Gems dying within the first month of its application. Eventually, however, plans were put into place for humans to perfect the golf ball grenade as well. At the same time the humans were putting in those plans, the Gems were releasing a grenade that came packed with sharp glass shrapnel inside it. This was the main weapon with an expelling mechanism in this manner after NATO’s banning of pisdokris bullets. This is one of the main factors to the Gems winning earlier on in the war.   
One of the factors that contributed to the Gems losing was that pisdokris bullets were frighteningly similar to dum dums, causing the Gems to have to resort to either human bullets or laser-based weaponry, which was not only almost impossible to operate due to its incompatibility with Earth weaponry unless one smuggled guns from Homeworld (or was under a few clandestine deals from the Diamonds), but was also not nearly as powerful unless it had at least five minutes of charging time due to the distance of the Sun from the Earth compared to Homeworld.  
Plans for an artificial sun-like software by agglutinating light from nearby stars were established by the end of the war, but the Gems lost far too early for anything of value to come from them. However, pisdokris bullets were used until about 75-80% of the war’s duration, during which the United Nations ordered its ban, with threats that other countries would intervene in what was essentially a civil war. This threat would be repeated a few times, and is one of the Gems’ contributing factors to losing. Had Homeworld backed the Gem combatants, it would easily take down the entire planet, but considering that the Gems are fighting with what is essentially a scrappy group of rebel fighters compared o the whole of Homeworld, one country, albeit one of the most highly sophisticated ones on the planet, is all they can handle without winning (at least without the intervention of the poison).   
The Gems, despite the UN's Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, still utilize local snake venom in their pisdokris bullets to speed human death. Some of these snakes include cottonmouths, coral snakes, and rattlesnakes. Most of these poisons rely on hemotoxins, which break down blood cells, preventing them from clotting and thus expediting bloodloss from bullet wounds. Eventually, just before the end of the war, the Gems.figured out how to mass produce them and called these new bullets "Krevkoordynators", or "Bloodgushers" or "Bloodmovers". Because of the diamondback rattlesnake's usefulness out of all the snakes, it was adopted into Gem paganism and crowned as the most sacred animal in the entire planet, with rumors saying the Diamonds implanted the diamondback into the ground in the very case of a human-Gem war.   
The Gems considered making a sort of coronavirus bomb in retaliation to the bombings of their bases from the poison. However, by the time the virus was successfully extracted from a prisoner of war who happened to test positive for it, the order came for every Gem to flee Earth for the second time. As a result, a small outbreak of the coronavirus happened on the new planet, causing a very small dent in its human population. In addition, had Steven survived beyond the ship to the new planet, he would've been killed by the virus a few weeks later.   
Due to the Gems' laser weaponry, the United States government considered the use of its AN-SEQ weapons system to decimate Gem naval craft. As a result, Jasper ordered the vessels be equipped with a bilayer force field that would be both cost effective and allow the craft time to patrol the area long enough for them to flee without damage from the weapons systems. However, in the process, 1,500 humans from Vallejo and San Francisco went blind, causing the Gems to use coverage of their medical expenses as leverage.   
The humans' most ambitious project during the war was the synthetic Gem, a woman-like piece of radioactive machinery resembling a Diamond  
However, by the time production ideas were even put into place, the war was over. However, they did consider its use for Earth security and intimidation should the Gems ever return after the war.   
Due to their reliance on aerial and naval craft and the sheer amount and caliber of soldiers, Gems by all means do not excell in making land-based ATVs. However, they do excel in stealing human ones and making their own prototypes based off of it. And near the end of the ear, they did make quite an intimidating one, one that would surpass the average human one with a few edits to its design.   
For the first time, both sides utilize weapons that affect the other side's vision via lasers. However, considering the Gems' experience when it comes to laser weapons, their lasers have the ability to kill at relatively large charging times, but even in short charging times, can permanently blind an opponent if shot at the right angle. The latter is the most that human weapons have built up to.   
Early on in the war, the Gems created technology to change the way light particles were refracted and reflected in their gems, causing them to appear colorless and almost invisible. However, with most soldiers, the process would crack or shatter their gems, and even elites such as Jasper have difficulty maintaining that form for long. However, this proves to be a boon in short ambushes or charges.   
The humans are equipped with a French gun called a palm pistol, which is designed for very close ranges, such as what one would have in a meeting or interview between both sides and can easily shatter a gem. However, both sides spend so much time in the battlefront before the war is ended that it was never put to use. But the amount of damage it could have caused to human-Gem relationships is tremendous. The Gem equivalent was a type of weaponized set of brass knuckles; having a full-on knife that would do any damage whatsoever would mean there would be no room for a barrel.  
If you were a Gem…  
96%- Nothing happens to you  
3%-You get wounded  
66%-You get wounded enough to go to the field hospital  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital.   
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
1%-You die

If you’re a particularly hardy Gem, such as a Jasper or a Bismuth (Quartzes don’t count):  
98%-Nothing happens to you  
1%-You get wounded  
66%-You get wounded enough to go to the field hospital  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital  
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
1%-You die

If you’re, theoretically, a half-Gem and a half human…  
78%-Nothing happens to you  
15%-You get wounded  
66%-You get wounded enough to go to the field hospital  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital  
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
7%-You die

If you’re a human…  
60%-Nothing happens to you  
30%-You get wounded  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital  
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
10%-You die

So, to have a more specific timeline... (Note: They gained about 72.5 miles per month.)  
March 29th, 2027-War is declared  
April 2027- From Vallejo, California (entering in from San Pablo Bay) to Clearlake, California  
May 2027-From Clearlake, California to Corning, California  
June 2027-From Corning, California to Willow Creek, California  
July 2027- From Willow Creek, Callifornia to the California-Oregon border  
August 2027- From the California-Oregon border to Canyonville, Oregon  
September 2027-From Canyonville, Oregon to Cottage Grove, Oregon  
October 2027-From Cottage Grove, Oregon to Albany, Oregon  
November 2027- From Albany, Oregon to Portland, Oregon, ending with the Battle of Portland  
December 2027-From the end of the Battle of Portland to the Oregon-Washington border  
January 2023- From the Oregon-Washington Border to Bellevue, Oregon; in the middle of January, they end their northern campaign and start heading east towards the Montana-North Dakota border. They proceed east and end the month at Wenatchee, Washington.   
February 2023- From Wenatchee, Washington to Spokane, Washington/ the Washington-Idaho border  
March 2023-From Spokane, Washington/the Washington-Idaho border to Polson, Montana, shredding through most of the state of Idaho due to the sheer lack of people. In addition, they plant crystal-filled potatoes along the way (since this s naturally-occurring, it’s only a matter of selective breeding) in order to further dampen Idaho’s economy. Here, their ruse to trick the humans into thinking they’ll proceed further into California ends, and the army does a mass evacuation. By the time the humans realize that the Gems aren’t going to decimate California and the humans try to mount an offensive in Oregon and Washington, it’s too late to stop the Gems, and some have even gained a foothold already in Nevada and Utah. At this point, the Gem military is at its absolute peak. They move their way northeast, but they’re not sure where they’ll move; the humans think that they’ll keep on heading east and towards places such as Illinois and New York, which are incredibly populated. Some think they’ll head south towards not only the desert states, but states such as Texas and Florida, but are not sure of their motives other than to attack more populated human areas. They have no idea that the Gems are trying to utilize the huge crystal deposits in the desert states to build more Kindergartens against Steven’s will.   
April 2023- From Polson, Montana to Great Falls, Montana  
May 2023- From Great Falls, Montana to Malta, Montana  
June 2023- From Malta, Montana to the Montana-North Dakota border. After June, they will stop their progression to the east and instead launch the final maneuver towards the southwest. Their forces from Washington and Oregon, as well as some in California and Idaho (Jasper will join the forces to the west because of them needing assistance more than the eastern forces), will start in the California-Nevada border, with the forces to the east proceeding their way southwest, cutting through Wyoming to reach the top of Utah, and thus the beginning of the huge amount of crystal deposits. Note that starting in Oregon, they’ve already started storing them in the territories they’ve already gained to use later; however, it’s only in Utah and Nevada that they’ll have access to enough that creating the Kindergartens will be worth it in terms of resources, both made in territories occupied by Gems and some covert shipments from Homeworld.   
July 2023- From the Montana-Wyoming border to Douglas, Wyoming. Meanwhile, from the western front, they will start in the California-Nevada border and proceed as far east and as far south as Round Mountain, Nevada. They’ve taken everything from the top to Round Mountain. Here, the western front will rest and regather due to the huge amount of resources. The eastern army’s lost a huge amount of resources since it first started gaining territories, so the western army is sending whatever surplus it has to the eastern army, which...won’t end well. Jasper knows the risk she’s taking, but sees how far the humans are and sees how desperate the eastern front is, and sees no other option. Tragically, the humans advance farther than expected due to a switch of leadership down in the ranks the Gem Army had know way of knowing about, and the Gem Army, while prepared, isn’t quite as prepared as Jasper wants them to be. This is one of the key factors towards the humans actually winning the war in the end.   
August 2023- While the western front stays put, Jasper goes back to the eastern front for now and helps them go from Douglas, Wyoming to Creston, Wyoming.   
September 2023- The eastern front continues to be shipped supplies and moves from Creston, Wyoming to Green River, Wyoming.   
October 2023- The eastern front moves from Green River, Wyoming to literally FIVE MILES away from the Wyoming-Utah border, where they can start acquiring enough to build their Kindergartens. However, the humans discover where the main Gem Army is and launches a brutal offensive that goes after their already stunted resources. An exasperated Jasper orders the eastern front to stop so the supplies can remain in the western front, goes to the western front, and helps them fight against the humans. However, the humans are too overwhelming for the Gem Army.  
For 6 months, this continues, with both sides almost ready to give up. That is until the poison comes in. The Gems begin using it and actually start gaining ground in Nevada, starting some small Kindergartens along with the converted humans. Everyone thinks the humans are going to lose until the humans discover its lethality to Gems. The Gem Army gets DECIMATED, Jasper oofs herself, and the rest is history. 

Now, for an EVEN MORE specific timeline…  
March 29th, 2027-Declaration of war  
April 1st-15th, 2027-The armed forces scramble to get going and refreshes the tactics brought on during the Gem War. They use melee weapons for now, but start to establish places where they can manufacture and distribute modern weapons, most famously the pisdokris. In addition, they also steal some weapons or simply purchase them. This makes it to where the Quartzes are armed with decent weapons, causing them to have to use more intensive tactics and intimidation in exchange to their lack of weapons. This is one of the reasons why the Vallejo Massacre was, indeed, a massacre.   
April 16th, 2027- The Vallejo Massacre, which lasted for 6 hours from about 7:30 PM-1:30 AM. Since they’re attacking from the west, and the sun sets in the west, they want the sun to be in the humans’ eyes as they mount their offensives towards them.   
Some stuff on Vallejo.  
What do you get when you put a formerly homeless veteran who is insatiably power-hungry into the reins of a war suddenly? And what do you get when thousands of OTHER veterans arrive who would also enjoy the prospect of war? Some...very questionable things during their first battle. More than questionable.   
In Vallejo, it’s an all-out massacre. Approximately 50,000 civilians, or 40 percent of Vallejo’s entire population, are killed. This immediately sets America’s eyes on California, which provides another reason that they either don’t notice or ignore the forces when they start to move north. No massacre in this scale would ever be done again. 15,000 troops were sent, each killing 3 or 4 citizens. About 12,000 troops were sent on the American side, so they were outnumbered and surprised, but not badly. While the Gems were more superior in numbers, the humans were more superior in weaponry. At least for now.   
The Vallejo Massacre can be also called the San Pablo Massacre, or the San Pablo Bay Massacre. In any event, if you speak to a human and refer to it as a regular battle, they’ll become highly offended, or, if you’re a Gem, might even become aggressive. The Vallejo Massacre also gave a horrible impression of Gems to the rest of America.   
Amount of troops sent on both sides: 5,000 (note: the ratio from now on for both sides is approximately 4% of the population.   
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3,000 troops, 50,000 civilians  
Gems: 20  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12,000 troops, 200,000 civilians  
Gems: 80

By April 16th, 2027, more Gems came with more weapons, although the pisdokris would not be put into place until the Battle of Sacramento. The managers of the ammunition facilities claimed they weren’t quite ready, but Eyeball (who was taking over for Jasper at the time) realized the sheer human threat they’d be facing in Sacramento and ordered the troops to deploy anyway, causing them to have a decisive victory. Most of the citizens had evacuated, and most of the Gem troops had calmed down. The humans retaliated by sending more troops, but it was too late. By the time they arrived, much of the territory was overrun by Gems, and to engage the Gems further would be a fatal mistake.   
April 17th, 2027- Recovering from the Vallejo Massacre, heading northward, not coming up to anywhere yet.  
April 18th, 2027-The Battle of Rio Vista. This time, there is not nearly as many civilian deaths, with only 20 dying. This is due to both the low population and the Gems adopting less guerrilla-like tactics.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 370  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 60 troops, 15 civilians  
Gems: 20  
Injuries:   
Humans: 180 troops, 45 civilians  
Gems: 80  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3,060 troops, 50,015 civilians  
Gems: 40  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12,060 troops, 200,015 civilians  
Gems: 160

April 19th, 2027-The Battle of Lockeford. Because of the incredibly low population compared to someplace like Vallejo, there are only a few civilian deaths. The Gems work heavily on regrouping their army for the decisive Battle of Sacramento, with Eyeball having sketched out an elaborate battle plan since war was declared in March. The use of the pisdokris was a consideration, but most advised against using it, as it was still a relatively new technology.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 129  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 20 troops, 5 civilians  
Gems: 5  
Injuries:  
Humans: 80 troops, 20 civilians  
Gems: 20  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 3,080 troops, 50,020 civilians  
Gems: 45  
Injuries:  
Humans: 13, 140 troops, 200,035 civilians  
Gems: 180

April 20th, 2027-The Gem Army travels a short distance and spends a day preparing for the Battle of Sacramento. However, a human spy from Lockeford gets word of their deliberation period and manages to mimic an old Gem battle alarm near Jasper’s quarters. In a panic, Jasper gets down on the floor, landing hard enough to crack her gem. She is unable to fight the next battle, and entrusts Eyeball to the battle. Much of the Gems are in a panic; the Battle of Sacramento was anticipated to be a difficult victory to begin with, and with Jasper being unable to lead, the prospects of victory seem even more dire. However, Eyeball’s strategy actually outpaces Jasper’s this time.

April 21st, 2027- The Battle of Sacramento. Eyeball first gives the city time to escape. Intimidation begins when some of the citizens refuse to take the threat seriously despite what happened in neighboring Vallejo. However, the majority of civilians evacuate, and hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war are taken in that day (they are allowed to go anywhere in Gem territory after the battle, and the Gems even promise to assist in rebuilding Sacramento whenever they can). Eyeball then flanks Sacramento via a weak point in Route 99, as the humans thought it would be best to establish the most manpower on the highways. They sneak around the borders in a perimeter and capture the strongholds at the 3 highways by surprise, gaining the victory with minimum bloodshed. A recovering Jasper is very impressed at this, and starts to welcome Eyeball more personally into her life. As soon as the Gems take Sacramento, the prisoners of war are released. They can even go into human territory, but they must have proof that this is critical. (I did consider supply to those areas, but California is one of the most agriculturally-heavy areas in the United States, giving them an advantage, or at least a way to feed their people should the humans refuse to supply food to those areas).   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 10,342  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 2,000 troops, 500 civilians  
Gems: 15  
Injuries:  
Humans:  
8,000 troops, 2,000 civilians  
Gems: 80  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 5,080 troops, 50,520 civilians  
Gems: 60  
Injuries:  
Humans: 20,320 troops, 202,080 civilians  
Gems: 240  
FUTURE RATIOS:  
Human deaths: Troops are .3% of the population, civilians are .09 percent of the population  
Gems: .003 percent of the population  
For injuries, just multiply the above by 4. 

April 22nd, 2027-Because of Eyeball’s pivotal strategy, there is a very low recovery time for the Gem Army. Jasper has recovered fully by this time, and they proceed north once more. The Battle of Calistoga occurs. From now on, the civilian deaths range from 0-2 in small towns, and the 2 are, more often than not, accidental.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 213   
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 16 troops, 5 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 64 troops, 20 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 5,906 troops, 50,525 civilians  
Gems: 60  
Infjuries:  
Humans: 20,384 troops, 202,100 civilians  
Gems: 240

April 23rd, 2027- The Battle of Somerset occurs. Jasper and Eyeball begin to work together and develop some sort of lasgun. The idea occurred to Eyeball after she confiscated one of the POW’s books, which depicted a sci-fi character with one. From then on, the human government urges citizens to limit or completely cut off science-fiction media consumption. However, their spread only grows more rampant, which further aids the Gems in their offense.   
Approximate amount of troops sent by both sides: 146  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 12 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 48 troops, 16 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 5,918 troops, 60,529 civilians  
Gems: 60  
Injuries:  
Humans: 20,432 troops, 202, 116 civilians  
Gems: 240

April 24th, 2027-The Battle of Roseville. The Gem Army leaves this city almost completely intact both in terms of infrastructure and culturally, which was a difficult thing to do due to its size. On this city, no POWs are taken, and for once, it is a peaceful takeover- a high amount of Gems have already moved here and welcome the Gems with open arms. Roseville is now officially established as the capitol of the Gem territories in the United States. Humans flock to the city, resulting in an even higher concentration of population.  
Approximate amount of troops sent by both sides: 5,565  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 445 troops, 148 civilians  
Gems: 45   
Injuries:  
Humans: 1,780 troops, 592 civilians  
Gems: 178  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 20,877 troops, 60,645 civilians  
Gems: 105   
Injuries:  
Humans: 85,308 troops, 202,708 civilians  
Gems: 345

April 25th, 2027- The Battle of Rocklin. A little hostility here, but it is in the Roseville area. There is violence here, but very little. It being a large town, a few civilians die, but only one or two- it would be four or five had it been any other large town.   
Approximate amount of troops sent by both sides: 2,689  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 215 troops, 71 civilians  
Gems: 22  
Injuries:  
Humans: 860 troops, 284 civilians  
Gems: 88  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,092 troops, 60,716 civilians  
Gems: 127  
Injuries:  
Humans: 85, 368 troops, 202,864 civilians  
Gems: 433

April 26th, 2027- Guinda is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. 

April 27th, 2027- They proceed northward, but they don’t fight any battles; they take this chance to recover for future ones.

April 28th, 2027- The Battle of Lincoln occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,919  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 153 troops, 51 civilians  
Gems: 17  
Injuries:   
Humans: 612 troops, 204 civilians  
Gems: 68  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 21,245 troops, 60,920 civilians  
Gems: 144  
Injuries:  
Humans: 85,980 troops, 203,068 civilians  
Gems: 501 

April 29th, 2027- The Battle of Clearlake occurs.

Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 615  
Humans: 49 troops, 16 civilians  
Gems: 5  
Injuries:  
Humans: 196 troops, 65 civilians  
Gems: 22  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 21, 544 troops, 203, 084 civilians  
Gems: 149  
Injuries  
Humans: 86,176 troops, 812,336 civilians  
Gems: 596

April 30th, 2027 and May 1st, 2027- They spend the day in recovery, training, and developing the lasgun for further use. They also celebrate the spring equinox, even though it has technically already happened eight days ago. The specific holiday they celebrate is modeled after the human May Day and is instead called “Cykli Piet”, which translates into “Five Cycles.” There is a myth in their culture that whenever the moon cycles five times throughout its course, it will either mean the end of war or pervasive peace. They look to the skies with hope, but they know the grim actuality that the war has only just begun.

May 2nd, 2027- They proceed north, but no battles occur. 

May 3rd, 2027-The Battle of Lakeport occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 197  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 16 troops, 5 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 64 troops, 21 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,608 troops, 203,105 civilians  
Gems: 151  
Injuries:  
Humans: 86,240 troops, 812,357 civilians  
Gems: 604

May 4th, 2027- The Battle of Yuba City occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 2,680  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 229 troops, 76 civilians  
Gems: 25  
Injuries:   
Humans: 916 troops, 304 civilians  
Gems: 101  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,839 troops, 203,181 civilians  
Gems: 176  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,156 troops, 812,661 civilians  
Gems: 705

May 5th, 2027- The Battle of Colusa occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 236  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 19 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 76 troops, 25 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,858 troops, 212,667 civilians  
Gems: 178  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,232 troops, 812,686 civilians  
Gems: 713

May 6th, 2027- The Battle of Maxwell occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 44  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,870 troops, 212,668 civilians  
Gems: 178  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,244 troops, 812,690 civilians  
Gems: 714

May 7th, 2027- Lodoga is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. 

May 8th, 2027- They proceed north, but no battles occur.

May 9th, 2027- The Battle of Gridley occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 265  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21 troops, 7 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 84 troops, 28 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:   
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,891 troops, 212,675 civilians  
Gems: 180  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,328 troops, 812,697 civilians  
Gems: 722

May 10th, 2027- The Battle of Palermo occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 215  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 17 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 68 troops, 24 civilians  
Gems: 8

May 11th, 2027- Camptonville is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 12th, 2027-They proceed north, but no battles occur.  
May 13th, 2027- The Battle of Willows occurs.   
May 14th, 2027- Elk Creek is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 15th, 2027- The Battle of Artois occurs.  
May 16th, 2027- The Battle of Durham occurs.  
May 17th, 2027- The Battle of Chico City occurs. It is long and taxing, and the Gems take a break from fighting the next two days; Eyeball and Jasper use this time to make crucial developments in the lasgun for the upcoming Battle of Portland. "What we have suffered now," urges Jasper, "is nothing compared to Portland."  
May 20th, 2027- The Battle of Orland occurs.   
May 21st, 2027- Richardson Springs is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 22nd, 2027-Paskenta is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. Here, the Gems establish a secret base for later invasions.   
May 23rd, 2027- Flournoy is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 24th, 2027- The Battle of Coming occurs.   
May 25th, 2027- They proceed north, but don't have any battles.  
May 26th, 2027- They proceed north, but don't have any battles.  
May 27th, 2027- The Battle of Los Molinos occurs.   
May 28th, 2027- Watson is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 29th, 2027- The Battle of Butte Meadows occurs.   
May 30th, 2027- Zenia is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. Along with Paskenta, it is established as one of the bases .It is chosen due to one of the first colonies the Diamonds began- the Zenia colony. Here, even more developments are made on the lasgun, and the pisdokris is improved to cause more significant damage. Small but deadly aircraft vehicles are also established here, creating the Gems’ Air Force.   
May 31st, 2027- The Battle of Red Bluff occurs.  
June 1st, 2027- Wells Place is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.  
June 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Bend occurs.   
June 3rd, 2027- The Battle of Rosewood occurs. Here, humans have more freedom than usual, but not as many freedoms as the people in Roseville. Some wealthier schools in California, Oregon, and even Washington keep their doors open in order to protect children should a battle occur. Some of the wealthiest schools even have special bunkers.   
June 4th, 2027- Paynes creek is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 5th, 2027- Mineral is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 6th, 2027- Platina is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 7th, 2027- The Battle of Cottonwood occurs.   
June 8th, 2027- The Battle of Anderson occurs.   
June 9th, 2027- The Battle of Redding occurs.  
June 10h, 2027- Douglas City is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 11th, 2027- The Battle of Lewiston occurs.  
June 12th, 2027- The Battle of Weaverville occurs.   
June 13th, 2027- The Battle of Shasta Lake occurs.  
June 14th, 2027- The Battle of O’Brien occurs. Prior to now, despite its population and achievements, it was never brought to any fame in the American community, so the Gems replied by glorifying every accomplishment, perhaps more than they deserved. This convinces the many thousands of humans in that area to join the Gems, or at least be tempted to. While they aren’t allowed in battle, they are certainly allowed as spies, researchers, or medics.   
June 15th, 2027- The Battle of Burney occurs.  
June 16th, 2027- Cassel is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 17th, 2027- Lakehead-Lakeshore is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 18th, 2027- Trinity Center is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 19th, 2027- Pollard flat is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 20th, 2027- The Battle of Big Bend occurs.  
June 21st, 2027- Coffee Creek is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 22nd, 2027- They stay at Coffee Creek that day and celebrate the summer solstice. Jasper and Eyeball’s friendship grows during the tribal competitions they do throughout the day, although the both of them have sketched out an elaborate plan to defend the area should the humans find out that the Gems are prone to celebrating during the summer solstice. In addition, they have sent small squadrons to leave the celebration area in shifts. Some of them set up a decoy weapon, a type of gun they know would never function, that they plan to create. The humans notice this and attack them, but only for about a half an hour. Thus, they stage attacks so it seems like the Gems aren’t celebrating the summer solstice any time soon, although they only look out/kill humans for a couple of hours a day and can spend the rest of the day celebrating.   
June 23rd, 2027- Obie is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. Due to the area’s name translating into “Citizen” or “Woman”, the most common term to address Gems in Homeworld to rally them for battle, it is technically granted the same freedoms as Rosewood.   
June 24th, 2027- Wyntoon is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. The castle there is converted into a large Gem military base, which can hold up to 750,000 Gems, with the promise that the castle can be open to the public for the very first time once the war ends. They also do renovations on the castle once inside, thus leaving the public with a safe, newly-renovated castle open for the first time since 1903. The former rural area booms in tourism, giving its people a solid economy. Because of all of this, almost everyone between the ages of 18 and 65 in Wyntoon joins the Gem Army.   
June 25th, 2027- The Battle of Dunsmuir occurs.   
June 26th, 2027- The Battle of Pondosa occurs.  
June 27th, 2027- The Battle of McCloud occurs.   
June 28th, 2027- The Battle of Mount Shasta occurs. Here, the Gem Air Force becomes better mobilized, fighting human aircraft that connects with each other in order to form a larger entity.   
June 29th, 2027-The Battle of Scarface occurs.  
June 30th, 2027- Black Butte (WHEEEEEEZE) is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 1st, 2027- They camp out at Black Butte (HAHAHA, I CAN’T STOP WHEEZING) for the day in order to better prepare for the California-Oregon border, planned on July 4th.  
July 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Yreka occurs. Had I been a Gem, I’d be severely injured during this fight, and be disabled to the point of me having to go home and recover for a full year, but I wouldn’t die.   
July 3rd, 2027- Hornbrook is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. They utilize the rest of the day in order to set up battlements near the California-Oregon border.   
July 4th, 2027- A long and bitter battle at the California-Oregon border. They forge ahead, but many lives are lost on both sides, regardless of how well the other side plans. Even Jasper doesn’t want to talk about the results of the battle much, and it turns out to be so traumatizing for the both of them that they sleep together (with a hint of romance) and unwittingly fuse for the first time that night. However, in the morning, they wake up with a feeling of well-being, but are unaware of what happened.   
July 5th to July 9th, 2027- They spend the day traveling north, but specifically to uninhabited places so that the tired Gem forces can rest and prepare for future battles. Some even go home for a short period of time during this, although, of course, this is kept hush-hush.   
July 10th, 2027- The Battle of Ashland occurs. (We’re in Oregon now, in case you haven’t caught on.)  
July 11th, 2027- The Battle of Talent occurs.  
July 12th, 2027-Yonna is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 13th, 2027- The Battle of Medford occurs.  
July 14th, 2027- The Battle of Central Point occurs.  
July 15th, 2027- The Battle of Grants Pass occurs.  
July 16th, 2027- The Battle of Eagle Point occurs.   
July 17th, 2027- The Battle of Merlin occurs. Not nearly as epic as you may think it’d be.   
July 18th, 2027- Butte Falls is taken (with a name like that, you wouldn’t expect anything different). Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 19th, 2027- The Battle of Galice occurs.   
July 20th, 2027- Chiloquin is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.  
July 21st, 2027- The Battle of Shady Cove occurs.  
July 22nd, 2027- Glendale is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 23rd, 2027- Prospect is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 24th, 2027- Azalea is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 25th, 2027- The Battle of Cow Creek occurs. As you can tell, nothing eventful happens there, at least for a battle.   
July 26th, 2027- The Battle of Drew occurs.   
July 27th, 2027- The Battle of Canyonville occurs.   
July 28th, 2027- Fourmile is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. From then on, Fourmile is used a beach resort for the Gems who are homesick for Ocean- I mean, Beach City.  
July 29th, 2027- The Battle of Myrtle Creek occurs.  
July 30th, 2027- The Battle of Camas Valley occurs.   
July 31st, 2027- Tenmile is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 1st, 2027- The Battle of Winston occurs.   
August 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Bandon occurs. It could’ve been used as the beach resort, but because of the higher population there, it actually resulted in a battle, which resulted in a lot more damage compared to Fourmile.   
August 3rd, 2027- Bullards is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. The area was considered for the resort, but because of the eyesore the Battle of Bandon caused in terms of damage, it was turned into a small naval base for the Gem Army (the most crucial ones are back down in California). In addition, the debris from the Battle of Bandon was used as protection around Bullards.   
August 4th, 2027- The Battle of Green occurs.   
August 5th, 2027- The Battle of Roseburg occurs. Due to the name, they are granted the same freedom as Obie. Freedoms are halted from towns now due to their already somewhat excessive amount.   
August 6th, 2027- Chemult is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 7th, 2027- Clearwater is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 8th, 2027- The Battle of Glide occurs.   
August 9th, 2027- Oakland is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 10th, 2027- The Battle of Hawthorne occurs.  
August 11th, 2027- The Gems proceed north and find a mountain called Diamond Peak. They establish a military base around this area, but it is kept relatively small and hidden, and is instead established as a cultural hub for the Gems. However, there are no battles this day. Developments are made planning the Battle of Portland, as they are approaching that general area.   
August 12th, 2027- The Battle of Rice Hill occurs.   
August 13th, 2027- The Battle of Kellogg-Yoncella occurs.  
August 14th, 2027- The Gems decide to take a break, establishing more plans for the Battle of Portland and developing all aspects of the offensive thus far.   
August 15th, 2027- The Battle of Drain occurs.  
August 16th, 2027- Elkton is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 17th, 2027- They travel north, but no battles happen. They use this time to further debate Portland, but most of the day is just devoted to the Gems’ physical and mental recovery.   
August 18th, 2027- Dorena is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 19th, 2027- The Battle of McCredle Springs occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 128  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 10 troops, 3 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries:  
Humans: 40 troops, 12 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Total casualties:  
August 20th, 2027- Oakridge is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 21st, 2027-The Battle of Cottage Grove occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 414  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 33 troops, 11 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Injuries:  
Humans: 132 troops, 44 civilians  
Gems: 15  
Total casualties:  
August 22nd, 2027- Lorane is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 23rd-25th, 2027- They use this time to relax and celebrate one of their major holidays, which celebrates all of the blessings of summer and the preparation for the general cooling of the Earth. Some Gems use this time to briefly go home.   
August 26th, 2027- The Battle of Alma occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 357  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 29 troops, 10 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:  
Humans: 116 troops, 39 civilians  
Gems: 13  
Total casualties:   
August 27th, 2027- The Battle of Creswell occurs.   
Casualties during the battle: 220  
Deaths:  
Humans: 18 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 72 troops, 24 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
August 28th, 2027- The Battle of Lowell occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 42  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Total casualties:  
August 29th, 2027- The Battle of Pleasant Hill occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 227  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 18 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 72 troops, 24 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
August 30th, 2027 -The Battle of Eugene occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 6,850  
Casualties during the battle:   
Deaths:  
Humans: 548 troops, 129 civilians  
Gems: 61  
Injuries:  
Humans: 2,192 troops, 731 civilians  
Gems: 244  
August 31st, 2027- The Battle of Coburg occurs. Fought as a cooldown battle from the Battle of Eugene, one of the war’s most devastating battles to date.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 46  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 4 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 16 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Total casualties:  
September 1st, 2027- They take a break from the brutal battle of Eugene to rest and recover.   
September 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Marcola occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 55  
Casualties during the war:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 4 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 16 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Total casualties:  
September 3rd, 2027- The Battle of Junction City occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 247  
Deaths:  
Humans: 20 troops, 10 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:   
Humans: 80 troops, 40 civilians  
Gems: 12  
Total casualties:  
September 4th, 2027- The Battle of Harrisburg occurs.   
Approximate number of troops on both sides: 153  
Deaths:  
Humans: 6 troops, 2 civilians  
Gems: 1  
September 5th, 2027- Monroe is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
September 6th, 2027- The Battle of Brownsville occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides:72  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 6 troops, 2 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries:  
Humans: 24 troops, 8 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Total casualties:  
September 7th, 2027 to September 14th, 2027- They travel north, but no battles occur.  
September 15th, 2027- Halsey (not the singer) is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.  
September 16th, 2027-October 3rd, 2027- The Gems travel north for a little while, then take a break to celebrate the fall equinox. Some of them choose to go home during this time, a period of going home that has been the longest yet so far.   
October 4th, 2027- The Battle of Albany occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 2,179  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 174 troops, 58 civilians  
Gems: 19  
Injuries:  
Humans: 696 troops, 232 civilians  
Gems: 77  
Total casualties:  
October 5th, 2027- The Battle of Sublimity occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 237  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 9 troops, 3 civilians  
Gems:  
1  
INjuries:  
Humans: 36 troops, 12 civilians  
Gems:4  
Total casualties:  
October 6th, 2027- The Battle of Stayton occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 660  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 26 troops, 9 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:  
Humans: 78 troops, 27 civilians  
Gems: 12  
Total casualties:  
October 7th, 2027- The Battle of Lyons occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 50  
Deaths:  
Humans: 4 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 16 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 2  
October 8th, 2027- The Battle of Mill City occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 78  
Deaths:  
Humans: 6 troops, 2 civilians  
Gems:0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 24 troops, 8 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Total casualties:  
October 9th, 2027- The Battle of Salem occurs, one of the most taxing to both forces so far and one of the most memorable of the war, albeit it took much less strategizing than the Battle of Portland will.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 6,938  
Deaths:  
Humans: 555 troops, 105 civilians  
Gems: 62   
Injuries:  
Humans: 2,220 troops, 420 civilians (OHHHHH)  
Gems: 248  
Total casualties:  
October 10th, 2027- The Battle of Keizer occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,588  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 127 troops, 42 civilians  
Gems: 14  
Injuries:  
Humans: 508 troops, 169 civilians  
Gems: 56  
October 11th, 2027- The Battle of Silverton occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 426  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 34 troops, 11 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Injuries:   
Humans: 136 troops, 45 civilians  
Gems: 15  
Total casualties:   
October 12th, 2027- Simnasho is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 13th, 2027- Dant is taken. Because of the very low huan population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 14th, 2027- Ripplebrook is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 15th, 2027- Three Lynx s taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 16th, 2027- The Battle of Woodburn occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,043  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 83 troops, 28 civilians  
Gems: 9  
Injuries:  
Humans: 332 troops, 111 civilians  
Gems: 37  
October 17th, 2027- The Battle of Colton occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 272  
Casalties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 11 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries: 44 troops, 15 civilians  
Gems: 5  
October 18th, 2027- The Battle of McMinniville occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,385  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 111 troops, 37 civilians  
Gems: 12  
Injuries:  
Humns: 444 troops, 148 civilians  
Gems: 49  
October 19th, 2027- The Battle of Estacada occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 281  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 11 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries:  
Humans: 44 troops, 15 civilians  
Gems: 5  
October 20th, 2027- The Battle of Pacific City occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 41  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:   
Humans: 9 troops, 3 civilians  
Gems: 1  
October 21st, 2027- The Battle of Tualatin occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 2,208  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 88 troops, 29 civilians  
Gems: 10  
Injuries:  
Humans: 352 troops, 117 civilians  
Gems: 39  
October 22nd, 2027- The Gems make an extremely fast push towards Portland and perform the dreaded battle. Everything that they’ve been preparing themselves for for the past month and a half has come. Eyeball’s strategy comes into full play. Despite all the armies’ best efforts, the battle is one of the most brutal in the entire war, with almost astronomical losses on both sides, and it is a day no human or Gem will forget. Portland continues to hold vigils for those who have died in the battle long after the war is over, and some of the Gems even participate as well.   
Without further ado, let’s get this show on the road.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 52,249  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 17,416 troops, 5,805 civilians  
Gems: 231. One of Eyeball’s biggest achievements, as this is an extremely small number against the humans’ losses.   
Injuries:   
Humans:   
Injuries:  
Humans: EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE BATTLE is wounded to some extent. Something the Gems pride themselves on to this day. 22,861 civilians.  
Gems: 770   
From October 23rd to October 25th, the Gems take a much-deserved break. During this time, some Gems even go home. Both sides mourn their dead, the Gems celebrate their victory, and both armies prepare for the next battles ahead. This is the turning point in the war, when those who haven’t been paying attention to the status of the war know for sure that the Gems will win. Some humans panic and seek citizenship in countries like Canada, Great Britain, and Australia despite the fact that there are Gems living there as well; some think this is the end of humanity. The period that follows from October 23rd-December 2nd of 2027 is known as the Great Gem Panic, when hatred towards civilian Gems grows tremendously. During this time, Bismuth is caught in a brutal fight with some of the humans. One Gem is slowly killed after a human couple,, who have discovered that her body has turned into a weak hologram as well, begin attacking her with kitchen knives. In total, she has seven wounds, them working their way up- once on each foot, twice on the lower area of each leg, once in the hip on each side, and twice in the chest as the final blows. Bismuth doesn’t witness it happening, but finds her dying, and manages to hold and comfort her before she dies and buries her due to her having no family. Bismuth develops an edge against humans, not being *quite* as accepting of them as she used to be.   
October 26th, 2027- The Battle of Troutdale occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,130  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 52 troops, 17 civilians  
Gems: 6  
Injuries:  
Humans: 208 troops, 70 civilians  
Gems: 23  
Total casualties:  
October 27th, 2027- The Battle of Camas occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 954  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 76 troops, 25 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Injuries:  
Humans: 304 troops, 101 civilians  
Gems: 34  
October 28th, 2027- The Battle of Vancouver occurs. This is taxing, but not as much as Portland was. By now, the Gems are tired. Samhain isn’t for three days, but after the Battle of Vancouver having come right after the Battle of Portland, their morale is low, their bodies and minds exhausted. So they take their break early and come back November 3rd, with a large amount of Gems going home to spend time with their families before going back.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 12,943  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 492 troops, 164 civilians  
Gems: 55  
Injuries:  
Humans: 1,968 troops, 656 civilians  
Gems: 219  
October 29th, 2027-November 2nd, 2027- Their break.   
November 3rd, 2027- The Battle of Five Corners occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,453  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 58 troops, 19 civilians  
Gems: 6  
Injuries:  
Humans: 232 troops, 77 civilians  
Gems: 26  
November 4th, 2027- Timber is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
November 5th, 2027- The Battle of Scappoose occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 599  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 24 troops, 8 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:  
Humans: 96 roops, 32 civilians  
Gems: 11  
Total casualties:   
November 6th, 2027- The November 6th Battle occurs. Better than calling it the Battle of Battle Ground…  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,676  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 67 troops, 22 civilians  
Gems: 7  
Injuries:  
Humans: 268 troops, 89 civilians  
Gems: 30  
November 7th, 2027- The Battle of Woodland occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 4,842  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 387 troops, 129 civilians  
Gems: 43  
Innjuries:  
Humans: 1,548 troops, 516 civilians  
Gems: 172

A comprehensive list of treatment capabilities for Gems during the war (although almost 40 percent of these Gems died or were permanently disabled in the process):  
-Quartzes attempted to enhance their capabilities via irradiation, but those who survived were converted to Smoky Quartzes in the process, which acted and appeared much like a fusion and caused much of their peers to subject them to ridicule.   
-Amethysts underwent the same process, but we're transformed into citrine. Thus, the process for them was little more than them willing to commit to a different appearance.  
-Rubies and sapphires (and yes, Jasper) attempted to enhance their fighting capabilities via heating themselves in a specialized oven.   
-Nearly all Aquamarines utilized heat treatment on Homeworld prior to even their emigration to Earth.  
-Emeralds were shattered immediately upon attempts at heat treatment or irradiation. However, nearly all of them survived being filled with resin from mainly the ocotillo cactus, as well as from other local cacti. This resin not only enhanced their appearance and their fighting capabilities, but also made them tougher to hold onto should they be caught in a stranglehold.   
-All Garnets were shattered immediately upon attempting any kind of treatment.   
-Nephrites had different kinds of treatment capabilities depending on whether or not they were rushed and to what degree. Most of them could endure penetration with special polymers in order to better undergo the differentiation of light refraction. Slightly rushed Nephrites only had the ability to undergo treatments for cosmetic purposes, which very little had reason to do, and moderate to severely rushed Nephrites were too fragile to undergo any kind of treatment.   
-Jasper successfully underwent dye injections in order to fool her soldiers into thinking she did not suffer from corruption.   
-Morganites were able to withstand slight heat treatment (AKA the desert heat).   
-Pearls underwent all kinds of treatment, even in a compulsory manner in some ways. They were bleached, dyed, and even exposed to irradiation, even for cosmetic purposes. Some experienced enhanced fighting capabilities, but not much at all.  
One of the most essential concepts to grasp in order to understand the Secomd Gem War, or even the entire Gem civilization as a whole, is how crystals are grown. Firstly, it is an incredibly difficult process, as there are almost countless amounts of variables. Because of this, not only is the synthetic gem-making process highly regulated at least in developed nations, but it also has multiple methods in case one does not prove to be effective. The first method, and the one the Gems mainly use, is called vapor growth, or narodziny in Gem, which translates literally into "birth'. In vapor growth, the gaseous form of the desire substance reacts with a catalyst, which not only speeds the reaction, but also aids the solute in question in essentially packing itself into the allotted space. While the gaseous forms are very volatile, its products are extremely so, and the products are isolated from living organisms and cooled. While humans isolate the products in a chilled room, Gems dip the products in a protected case surrounded by liquid nitrogen from their prospective colonies' atmospheres. While Gem technology has now allowed for any sort of shape needed for the crystals to form in, human technology is limited to the crystals forming into little more than aggregates of thin lines, as you witnessed in Chemistry class. The second method is not utilized by Gems out of respect, but was considered for utilization by humans all throughout the Second Gem War. Called Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD), its only application is for diamonds. This process is entirely the same as it is for vapor growth, with the only exception being exposing the substances to a series of filaments. In every other gem substance, which is not mainly composed of carbon, the process is inhibited by the filaments. The third method, used in the rushed Beta Kindergarten and recreated in my mother's womb, is called melt growth, and is based off the process by which drops of water form snowflakes, which are, by all means, crystals. In this simple process, colored molten metal is frozen. However, this does not produce sentient Gems, so it is only used for jewelry-making purposes. However, in the Beta Kindergarten and my mother's womb, the liquid form of the gem freezes into place. This process allows air to squeeze into parts of the gem, causing parts of the gem to become defected or, in extremely rare cases, to enhance the Gem's growth, although this has only been witnessed in jasper.   
Trump spent most, if not all his time, from 2021-22 involved in the Space Force. In terms of its success during the war, it was surprisingly limited to a few diplomatic conversations, mediated by Steven, between the United States and Homeworld, with both sides agreeing on a treaty that no spacecraft of any kind will be utilized under any condition, with the reward of financial aid from the United States in Homeworld's rebuilding. The Diamonds took this offer, them having little to no aid otherwise and little to no wherewithal for any sort of spacecraft to reach Earth (yes, this means prospective Earth migrants are trapped on Homeworld). Any fragments of the Hand Ship left were quickly disposed of by the government, to Steven's chagrin.  
(This does not apply to the war, but I found this to be very cool- a type of fusion does exist when it comes to gem-making! Flame fusion, created by the father of synthetic gems Auguste Vernueil, is when an extremely small concentration of the powdered form of the desired substance is combined-fused- with a catalyst or dye and burned over a hydroxygenated flame. The resulting melted droplets are isolated in a boiler and left to cool as usual. And you CAN use this method, or any of the other gem-making methods, to fuse gems!)  
However, despite how ineffective the Space Force was during the Second Gem War, it taught not just the United States, but most UN member countries to unite (much to Trump's utter horror) and make more sophisticated their space forces. For this reason, it was very difficult for any members of the new planet to come back to Earth.   
The Gems have such powers and enhanced properties due to their irradiation, which in fact changes the entirety of their crystal lattice.   
After fifteen years, Homeworld finally did recuperate from its conflict, but it was so badly devastated by the population emigrating to different planets that it became a shell of the empire it used to be, but still very influential in interplanetary government affairs- think colonial vs current England.   
In terms of grenades, the Gems learned to perfect the golf ball grenade, which was in use from the 1960’s-80’s and referred to by soldiers as a “mini frag”. Its small size meant that it went almost completely without notice, and eventually, during the end of the war, the Gems also put in a beta program to where the grenades would have the same change in refraction of light as Gems themselves. However, this backfired, with dozens of Gems dying within the first month of its application. Eventually, however, plans were put into place for humans to perfect the golf ball grenade as well. At the same time the humans were putting in those plans, the Gems were releasing a grenade that came packed with sharp glass shrapnel inside it. This was the main weapon with an expelling mechanism in this manner after NATO’s banning of pisdokris bullets. This is one of the main factors to the Gems winning earlier on in the war.   
One of the factors that contributed to the Gems losing was that pisdokris bullets were frighteningly similar to dum dums, causing the Gems to have to resort to either human bullets or laser-based weaponry, which was not only almost impossible to operate due to its incompatibility with Earth weaponry unless one smuggled guns from Homeworld (or was under a few clandestine deals from the Diamonds), but was also not nearly as powerful unless it had at least five minutes of charging time due to the distance of the Sun from the Earth compared to Homeworld.  
Plans for an artificial sun-like software by agglutinating light from nearby stars were established by the end of the war, but the Gems lost far too early for anything of value to come from them. However, pisdokris bullets were used until about 75-80% of the war’s duration, during which the United Nations ordered its ban, with threats that other countries would intervene in what was essentially a civil war. This threat would be repeated a few times, and is one of the Gems’ contributing factors to losing. Had Homeworld backed the Gem combatants, it would easily take down the entire planet, but considering that the Gems are fighting with what is essentially a scrappy group of rebel fighters compared o the whole of Homeworld, one country, albeit one of the most highly sophisticated ones on the planet, is all they can handle without winning (at least without the intervention of the poison).   
The Gems, despite the UN's Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, still utilize local snake venom in their pisdokris bullets to speed human death. Some of these snakes include cottonmouths, coral snakes, and rattlesnakes. Most of these poisons rely on hemotoxins, which break down blood cells, preventing them from clotting and thus expediting bloodloss from bullet wounds. Eventually, just before the end of the war, the Gems.figured out how to mass produce them and called these new bullets "Krevkoordynators", or "Bloodgushers" or "Bloodmovers". Because of the diamondback rattlesnake's usefulness out of all the snakes, it was adopted into Gem paganism and crowned as the most sacred animal in the entire planet, with rumors saying the Diamonds implanted the diamondback into the ground in the very case of a human-Gem war.   
The Gems considered making a sort of coronavirus bomb in retaliation to the bombings of their bases from the poison. However, by the time the virus was successfully extracted from a prisoner of war who happened to test positive for it, the order came for every Gem to flee Earth for the second time. As a result, a small outbreak of the coronavirus happened on the new planet, causing a very small dent in its human population. In addition, had Steven survived beyond the ship to the new planet, he would've been killed by the virus a few weeks later.   
Due to the Gems' laser weaponry, the United States government considered the use of its AN-SEQ weapons system to decimate Gem naval craft. As a result, Jasper ordered the vessels be equipped with a bilayer force field that would be both cost effective and allow the craft time to patrol the area long enough for them to flee without damage from the weapons systems. However, in the process, 1,500 humans from Vallejo and San Francisco went blind, causing the Gems to use coverage of their medical expenses as leverage.   
The humans' most ambitious project during the war was the synthetic Gem, a woman-like piece of radioactive machinery resembling a Diamond  
However, by the time production ideas were even put into place, the war was over. However, they did consider its use for Earth security and intimidation should the Gems ever return after the war.   
Due to their reliance on aerial and naval craft and the sheer amount and caliber of soldiers, Gems by all means do not excell in making land-based ATVs. However, they do excel in stealing human ones and making their own prototypes based off of it. And near the end of the ear, they did make quite an intimidating one, one that would surpass the average human one with a few edits to its design.   
For the first time, both sides utilize weapons that affect the other side's vision via lasers. However, considering the Gems' experience when it comes to laser weapons, their lasers have the ability to kill at relatively large charging times, but even in short charging times, can permanently blind an opponent if shot at the right angle. The latter is the most that human weapons have built up to.   
Early on in the war, the Gems created technology to change the way light particles were refracted and reflected in their gems, causing them to appear colorless and almost invisible. However, with most soldiers, the process would crack or shatter their gems, and even elites such as Jasper have difficulty maintaining that form for long. However, this proves to be a boon in short ambushes or charges.   
The humans are equipped with a French gun called a palm pistol, which is designed for very close ranges, such as what one would have in a meeting or interview between both sides and can easily shatter a gem. However, both sides spend so much time in the battlefront before the war is ended that it was never put to use. But the amount of damage it could have caused to human-Gem relationships is tremendous. The Gem equivalent was a type of weaponized set of brass knuckles; having a full-on knife that would do any damage whatsoever would mean there would be no room for a barrel.  
If you were a Gem…  
96%- Nothing happens to you  
3%-You get wounded  
66%-You get wounded enough to go to the field hospital  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital.   
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
1%-You die

If you’re a particularly hardy Gem, such as a Jasper or a Bismuth (Quartzes don’t count):  
98%-Nothing happens to you  
1%-You get wounded  
66%-You get wounded enough to go to the field hospital  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital  
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
1%-You die

If you’re, theoretically, a half-Gem and a half human…  
78%-Nothing happens to you  
15%-You get wounded  
66%-You get wounded enough to go to the field hospital  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital  
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
7%-You die

If you’re a human…  
60%-Nothing happens to you  
30%-You get wounded  
44%-You recover in the field hospital and are discharged   
50%-You are discharged that day  
50%-You are discharged the next day  
22%-You die a few hours later in the field hospital  
22%-You die later that day in the field hospital  
22%-You survive the field hospital and are left at the local hospital to recover there long-term  
50%-It takes 6 months to a year for you to recover  
50%-It takes 1-6 months for you to recover  
33%-Your injuries are mild enough that you’ll be fine with some first aid  
10%-You die

So, to have a more specific timeline... (Note: They gained about 72.5 miles per month.)  
March 29th, 2027-War is declared  
April 2027- From Vallejo, California (entering in from San Pablo Bay) to Clearlake, California  
May 2027-From Clearlake, California to Corning, California  
June 2027-From Corning, California to Willow Creek, California  
July 2027- From Willow Creek, Callifornia to the California-Oregon border  
August 2027- From the California-Oregon border to Canyonville, Oregon  
September 2027-From Canyonville, Oregon to Cottage Grove, Oregon  
October 2027-From Cottage Grove, Oregon to Albany, Oregon  
November 2027- From Albany, Oregon to Portland, Oregon, ending with the Battle of Portland  
December 2027-From the end of the Battle of Portland to the Oregon-Washington border  
January 2023- From the Oregon-Washington Border to Bellevue, Oregon; in the middle of January, they end their northern campaign and start heading east towards the Montana-North Dakota border. They proceed east and end the month at Wenatchee, Washington.   
February 2023- From Wenatchee, Washington to Spokane, Washington/ the Washington-Idaho border  
March 2023-From Spokane, Washington/the Washington-Idaho border to Polson, Montana, shredding through most of the state of Idaho due to the sheer lack of people. In addition, they plant crystal-filled potatoes along the way (since this s naturally-occurring, it’s only a matter of selective breeding) in order to further dampen Idaho’s economy. Here, their ruse to trick the humans into thinking they’ll proceed further into California ends, and the army does a mass evacuation. By the time the humans realize that the Gems aren’t going to decimate California and the humans try to mount an offensive in Oregon and Washington, it’s too late to stop the Gems, and some have even gained a foothold already in Nevada and Utah. At this point, the Gem military is at its absolute peak. They move their way northeast, but they’re not sure where they’ll move; the humans think that they’ll keep on heading east and towards places such as Illinois and New York, which are incredibly populated. Some think they’ll head south towards not only the desert states, but states such as Texas and Florida, but are not sure of their motives other than to attack more populated human areas. They have no idea that the Gems are trying to utilize the huge crystal deposits in the desert states to build more Kindergartens against Steven’s will.   
April 2023- From Polson, Montana to Great Falls, Montana  
May 2023- From Great Falls, Montana to Malta, Montana  
June 2023- From Malta, Montana to the Montana-North Dakota border. After June, they will stop their progression to the east and instead launch the final maneuver towards the southwest. Their forces from Washington and Oregon, as well as some in California and Idaho (Jasper will join the forces to the west because of them needing assistance more than the eastern forces), will start in the California-Nevada border, with the forces to the east proceeding their way southwest, cutting through Wyoming to reach the top of Utah, and thus the beginning of the huge amount of crystal deposits. Note that starting in Oregon, they’ve already started storing them in the territories they’ve already gained to use later; however, it’s only in Utah and Nevada that they’ll have access to enough that creating the Kindergartens will be worth it in terms of resources, both made in territories occupied by Gems and some covert shipments from Homeworld.   
July 2023- From the Montana-Wyoming border to Douglas, Wyoming. Meanwhile, from the western front, they will start in the California-Nevada border and proceed as far east and as far south as Round Mountain, Nevada. They’ve taken everything from the top to Round Mountain. Here, the western front will rest and regather due to the huge amount of resources. The eastern army’s lost a huge amount of resources since it first started gaining territories, so the western army is sending whatever surplus it has to the eastern army, which...won’t end well. Jasper knows the risk she’s taking, but sees how far the humans are and sees how desperate the eastern front is, and sees no other option. Tragically, the humans advance farther than expected due to a switch of leadership down in the ranks the Gem Army had know way of knowing about, and the Gem Army, while prepared, isn’t quite as prepared as Jasper wants them to be. This is one of the key factors towards the humans actually winning the war in the end.   
August 2023- While the western front stays put, Jasper goes back to the eastern front for now and helps them go from Douglas, Wyoming to Creston, Wyoming.   
September 2023- The eastern front continues to be shipped supplies and moves from Creston, Wyoming to Green River, Wyoming.   
October 2023- The eastern front moves from Green River, Wyoming to literally FIVE MILES away from the Wyoming-Utah border, where they can start acquiring enough to build their Kindergartens. However, the humans discover where the main Gem Army is and launches a brutal offensive that goes after their already stunted resources. An exasperated Jasper orders the eastern front to stop so the supplies can remain in the western front, goes to the western front, and helps them fight against the humans. However, the humans are too overwhelming for the Gem Army.  
For 6 months, this continues, with both sides almost ready to give up. That is until the poison comes in. The Gems begin using it and actually start gaining ground in Nevada, starting some small Kindergartens along with the converted humans. Everyone thinks the humans are going to lose until the humans discover its lethality to Gems. The Gem Army gets DECIMATED, Jasper oofs herself, and the rest is history. 

Now, for an EVEN MORE specific timeline…  
March 29th, 2027-Declaration of war  
April 1st-15th, 2027-The armed forces scramble to get going and refreshes the tactics brought on during the Gem War. They use melee weapons for now, but start to establish places where they can manufacture and distribute modern weapons, most famously the pisdokris. In addition, they also steal some weapons or simply purchase them. This makes it to where the Quartzes are armed with decent weapons, causing them to have to use more intensive tactics and intimidation in exchange to their lack of weapons. This is one of the reasons why the Vallejo Massacre was, indeed, a massacre.   
April 16th, 2027- The Vallejo Massacre, which lasted for 6 hours from about 7:30 PM-1:30 AM. Since they’re attacking from the west, and the sun sets in the west, they want the sun to be in the humans’ eyes as they mount their offensives towards them.   
Some stuff on Vallejo.  
What do you get when you put a formerly homeless veteran who is insatiably power-hungry into the reins of a war suddenly? And what do you get when thousands of OTHER veterans arrive who would also enjoy the prospect of war? Some...very questionable things during their first battle. More than questionable.   
In Vallejo, it’s an all-out massacre. Approximately 50,000 civilians, or 40 percent of Vallejo’s entire population, are killed. This immediately sets America’s eyes on California, which provides another reason that they either don’t notice or ignore the forces when they start to move north. No massacre in this scale would ever be done again. 15,000 troops were sent, each killing 3 or 4 citizens. About 12,000 troops were sent on the American side, so they were outnumbered and surprised, but not badly. While the Gems were more superior in numbers, the humans were more superior in weaponry. At least for now.   
The Vallejo Massacre can be also called the San Pablo Massacre, or the San Pablo Bay Massacre. In any event, if you speak to a human and refer to it as a regular battle, they’ll become highly offended, or, if you’re a Gem, might even become aggressive. The Vallejo Massacre also gave a horrible impression of Gems to the rest of America.   
Amount of troops sent on both sides: 5,000 (note: the ratio from now on for both sides is approximately 4% of the population.   
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3,000 troops, 50,000 civilians  
Gems: 20  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12,000 troops, 200,000 civilians  
Gems: 80

By April 16th, 2027, more Gems came with more weapons, although the pisdokris would not be put into place until the Battle of Sacramento. The managers of the ammunition facilities claimed they weren’t quite ready, but Eyeball (who was taking over for Jasper at the time) realized the sheer human threat they’d be facing in Sacramento and ordered the troops to deploy anyway, causing them to have a decisive victory. Most of the citizens had evacuated, and most of the Gem troops had calmed down. The humans retaliated by sending more troops, but it was too late. By the time they arrived, much of the territory was overrun by Gems, and to engage the Gems further would be a fatal mistake.   
April 17th, 2027- Recovering from the Vallejo Massacre, heading northward, not coming up to anywhere yet.  
April 18th, 2027-The Battle of Rio Vista. This time, there is not nearly as many civilian deaths, with only 20 dying. This is due to both the low population and the Gems adopting less guerrilla-like tactics.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 370  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 60 troops, 15 civilians  
Gems: 20  
Injuries:   
Humans: 180 troops, 45 civilians  
Gems: 80  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3,060 troops, 50,015 civilians  
Gems: 40  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12,060 troops, 200,015 civilians  
Gems: 160

April 19th, 2027-The Battle of Lockeford. Because of the incredibly low population compared to someplace like Vallejo, there are only a few civilian deaths. The Gems work heavily on regrouping their army for the decisive Battle of Sacramento, with Eyeball having sketched out an elaborate battle plan since war was declared in March. The use of the pisdokris was a consideration, but most advised against using it, as it was still a relatively new technology.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 129  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 20 troops, 5 civilians  
Gems: 5  
Injuries:  
Humans: 80 troops, 20 civilians  
Gems: 20  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 3,080 troops, 50,020 civilians  
Gems: 45  
Injuries:  
Humans: 13, 140 troops, 200,035 civilians  
Gems: 180

April 20th, 2027-The Gem Army travels a short distance and spends a day preparing for the Battle of Sacramento. However, a human spy from Lockeford gets word of their deliberation period and manages to mimic an old Gem battle alarm near Jasper’s quarters. In a panic, Jasper gets down on the floor, landing hard enough to crack her gem. She is unable to fight the next battle, and entrusts Eyeball to the battle. Much of the Gems are in a panic; the Battle of Sacramento was anticipated to be a difficult victory to begin with, and with Jasper being unable to lead, the prospects of victory seem even more dire. However, Eyeball’s strategy actually outpaces Jasper’s this time.

April 21st, 2027- The Battle of Sacramento. Eyeball first gives the city time to escape. Intimidation begins when some of the citizens refuse to take the threat seriously despite what happened in neighboring Vallejo. However, the majority of civilians evacuate, and hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war are taken in that day (they are allowed to go anywhere in Gem territory after the battle, and the Gems even promise to assist in rebuilding Sacramento whenever they can). Eyeball then flanks Sacramento via a weak point in Route 99, as the humans thought it would be best to establish the most manpower on the highways. They sneak around the borders in a perimeter and capture the strongholds at the 3 highways by surprise, gaining the victory with minimum bloodshed. A recovering Jasper is very impressed at this, and starts to welcome Eyeball more personally into her life. As soon as the Gems take Sacramento, the prisoners of war are released. They can even go into human territory, but they must have proof that this is critical. (I did consider supply to those areas, but California is one of the most agriculturally-heavy areas in the United States, giving them an advantage, or at least a way to feed their people should the humans refuse to supply food to those areas).   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 10,342  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 2,000 troops, 500 civilians  
Gems: 15  
Injuries:  
Humans:  
8,000 troops, 2,000 civilians  
Gems: 80  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 5,080 troops, 50,520 civilians  
Gems: 60  
Injuries:  
Humans: 20,320 troops, 202,080 civilians  
Gems: 240  
FUTURE RATIOS:  
Human deaths: Troops are .3% of the population, civilians are .09 percent of the population  
Gems: .003 percent of the population  
For injuries, just multiply the above by 4. 

April 22nd, 2027-Because of Eyeball’s pivotal strategy, there is a very low recovery time for the Gem Army. Jasper has recovered fully by this time, and they proceed north once more. The Battle of Calistoga occurs. From now on, the civilian deaths range from 0-2 in small towns, and the 2 are, more often than not, accidental.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 213   
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 16 troops, 5 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 64 troops, 20 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 5,906 troops, 50,525 civilians  
Gems: 60  
Infjuries:  
Humans: 20,384 troops, 202,100 civilians  
Gems: 240

April 23rd, 2027- The Battle of Somerset occurs. Jasper and Eyeball begin to work together and develop some sort of lasgun. The idea occurred to Eyeball after she confiscated one of the POW’s books, which depicted a sci-fi character with one. From then on, the human government urges citizens to limit or completely cut off science-fiction media consumption. However, their spread only grows more rampant, which further aids the Gems in their offense.   
Approximate amount of troops sent by both sides: 146  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 12 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 48 troops, 16 civilians  
Gems: 0  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 5,918 troops, 60,529 civilians  
Gems: 60  
Injuries:  
Humans: 20,432 troops, 202, 116 civilians  
Gems: 240

April 24th, 2027-The Battle of Roseville. The Gem Army leaves this city almost completely intact both in terms of infrastructure and culturally, which was a difficult thing to do due to its size. On this city, no POWs are taken, and for once, it is a peaceful takeover- a high amount of Gems have already moved here and welcome the Gems with open arms. Roseville is now officially established as the capitol of the Gem territories in the United States. Humans flock to the city, resulting in an even higher concentration of population.  
Approximate amount of troops sent by both sides: 5,565  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 445 troops, 148 civilians  
Gems: 45   
Injuries:  
Humans: 1,780 troops, 592 civilians  
Gems: 178  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 20,877 troops, 60,645 civilians  
Gems: 105   
Injuries:  
Humans: 85,308 troops, 202,708 civilians  
Gems: 345

April 25th, 2027- The Battle of Rocklin. A little hostility here, but it is in the Roseville area. There is violence here, but very little. It being a large town, a few civilians die, but only one or two- it would be four or five had it been any other large town.   
Approximate amount of troops sent by both sides: 2,689  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 215 troops, 71 civilians  
Gems: 22  
Injuries:  
Humans: 860 troops, 284 civilians  
Gems: 88  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,092 troops, 60,716 civilians  
Gems: 127  
Injuries:  
Humans: 85, 368 troops, 202,864 civilians  
Gems: 433

April 26th, 2027- Guinda is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. 

April 27th, 2027- They proceed northward, but they don’t fight any battles; they take this chance to recover for future ones.

April 28th, 2027- The Battle of Lincoln occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,919  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 153 troops, 51 civilians  
Gems: 17  
Injuries:   
Humans: 612 troops, 204 civilians  
Gems: 68  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 21,245 troops, 60,920 civilians  
Gems: 144  
Injuries:  
Humans: 85,980 troops, 203,068 civilians  
Gems: 501 

April 29th, 2027- The Battle of Clearlake occurs.

Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 615  
Humans: 49 troops, 16 civilians  
Gems: 5  
Injuries:  
Humans: 196 troops, 65 civilians  
Gems: 22  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 21, 544 troops, 203, 084 civilians  
Gems: 149  
Injuries  
Humans: 86,176 troops, 812,336 civilians  
Gems: 596

April 30th, 2027 and May 1st, 2027- They spend the day in recovery, training, and developing the lasgun for further use. They also celebrate the spring equinox, even though it has technically already happened eight days ago. The specific holiday they celebrate is modeled after the human May Day and is instead called “Cykli Piet”, which translates into “Five Cycles.” There is a myth in their culture that whenever the moon cycles five times throughout its course, it will either mean the end of war or pervasive peace. They look to the skies with hope, but they know the grim actuality that the war has only just begun.

May 2nd, 2027- They proceed north, but no battles occur. 

May 3rd, 2027-The Battle of Lakeport occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 197  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 16 troops, 5 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 64 troops, 21 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,608 troops, 203,105 civilians  
Gems: 151  
Injuries:  
Humans: 86,240 troops, 812,357 civilians  
Gems: 604

May 4th, 2027- The Battle of Yuba City occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 2,680  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 229 troops, 76 civilians  
Gems: 25  
Injuries:   
Humans: 916 troops, 304 civilians  
Gems: 101  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,839 troops, 203,181 civilians  
Gems: 176  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,156 troops, 812,661 civilians  
Gems: 705

May 5th, 2027- The Battle of Colusa occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 236  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 19 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 76 troops, 25 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,858 troops, 212,667 civilians  
Gems: 178  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,232 troops, 812,686 civilians  
Gems: 713

May 6th, 2027- The Battle of Maxwell occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 44  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Total casualties:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,870 troops, 212,668 civilians  
Gems: 178  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,244 troops, 812,690 civilians  
Gems: 714

May 7th, 2027- Lodoga is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. 

May 8th, 2027- They proceed north, but no battles occur.

May 9th, 2027- The Battle of Gridley occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 265  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 21 troops, 7 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 84 troops, 28 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:   
Deaths:  
Humans: 21,891 troops, 212,675 civilians  
Gems: 180  
Injuries:  
Humans: 87,328 troops, 812,697 civilians  
Gems: 722

May 10th, 2027- The Battle of Palermo occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 215  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 17 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 68 troops, 24 civilians  
Gems: 8

May 11th, 2027- Camptonville is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 12th, 2027-They proceed north, but no battles occur.  
May 13th, 2027- The Battle of Willows occurs.   
May 14th, 2027- Elk Creek is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 15th, 2027- The Battle of Artois occurs.  
May 16th, 2027- The Battle of Durham occurs.  
May 17th, 2027- The Battle of Chico City occurs. It is long and taxing, and the Gems take a break from fighting the next two days; Eyeball and Jasper use this time to make crucial developments in the lasgun for the upcoming Battle of Portland. "What we have suffered now," urges Jasper, "is nothing compared to Portland."  
May 20th, 2027- The Battle of Orland occurs.   
May 21st, 2027- Richardson Springs is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 22nd, 2027-Paskenta is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. Here, the Gems establish a secret base for later invasions.   
May 23rd, 2027- Flournoy is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 24th, 2027- The Battle of Coming occurs.   
May 25th, 2027- They proceed north, but don't have any battles.  
May 26th, 2027- They proceed north, but don't have any battles.  
May 27th, 2027- The Battle of Los Molinos occurs.   
May 28th, 2027- Watson is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
May 29th, 2027- The Battle of Butte Meadows occurs.   
May 30th, 2027- Zenia is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. Along with Paskenta, it is established as one of the bases .It is chosen due to one of the first colonies the Diamonds began- the Zenia colony. Here, even more developments are made on the lasgun, and the pisdokris is improved to cause more significant damage. Small but deadly aircraft vehicles are also established here, creating the Gems’ Air Force.   
May 31st, 2027- The Battle of Red Bluff occurs.  
June 1st, 2027- Wells Place is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.  
June 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Bend occurs.   
June 3rd, 2027- The Battle of Rosewood occurs. Here, humans have more freedom than usual, but not as many freedoms as the people in Roseville. Some wealthier schools in California, Oregon, and even Washington keep their doors open in order to protect children should a battle occur. Some of the wealthiest schools even have special bunkers.   
June 4th, 2027- Paynes creek is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 5th, 2027- Mineral is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 6th, 2027- Platina is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 7th, 2027- The Battle of Cottonwood occurs.   
June 8th, 2027- The Battle of Anderson occurs.   
June 9th, 2027- The Battle of Redding occurs.  
June 10h, 2027- Douglas City is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 11th, 2027- The Battle of Lewiston occurs.  
June 12th, 2027- The Battle of Weaverville occurs.   
June 13th, 2027- The Battle of Shasta Lake occurs.  
June 14th, 2027- The Battle of O’Brien occurs. Prior to now, despite its population and achievements, it was never brought to any fame in the American community, so the Gems replied by glorifying every accomplishment, perhaps more than they deserved. This convinces the many thousands of humans in that area to join the Gems, or at least be tempted to. While they aren’t allowed in battle, they are certainly allowed as spies, researchers, or medics.   
June 15th, 2027- The Battle of Burney occurs.  
June 16th, 2027- Cassel is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 17th, 2027- Lakehead-Lakeshore is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 18th, 2027- Trinity Center is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 19th, 2027- Pollard flat is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 20th, 2027- The Battle of Big Bend occurs.  
June 21st, 2027- Coffee Creek is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
June 22nd, 2027- They stay at Coffee Creek that day and celebrate the summer solstice. Jasper and Eyeball’s friendship grows during the tribal competitions they do throughout the day, although the both of them have sketched out an elaborate plan to defend the area should the humans find out that the Gems are prone to celebrating during the summer solstice. In addition, they have sent small squadrons to leave the celebration area in shifts. Some of them set up a decoy weapon, a type of gun they know would never function, that they plan to create. The humans notice this and attack them, but only for about a half an hour. Thus, they stage attacks so it seems like the Gems aren’t celebrating the summer solstice any time soon, although they only look out/kill humans for a couple of hours a day and can spend the rest of the day celebrating.   
June 23rd, 2027- Obie is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. Due to the area’s name translating into “Citizen” or “Woman”, the most common term to address Gems in Homeworld to rally them for battle, it is technically granted the same freedoms as Rosewood.   
June 24th, 2027- Wyntoon is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. The castle there is converted into a large Gem military base, which can hold up to 750,000 Gems, with the promise that the castle can be open to the public for the very first time once the war ends. They also do renovations on the castle once inside, thus leaving the public with a safe, newly-renovated castle open for the first time since 1903. The former rural area booms in tourism, giving its people a solid economy. Because of all of this, almost everyone between the ages of 18 and 65 in Wyntoon joins the Gem Army.   
June 25th, 2027- The Battle of Dunsmuir occurs.   
June 26th, 2027- The Battle of Pondosa occurs.  
June 27th, 2027- The Battle of McCloud occurs.   
June 28th, 2027- The Battle of Mount Shasta occurs. Here, the Gem Air Force becomes better mobilized, fighting human aircraft that connects with each other in order to form a larger entity.   
June 29th, 2027-The Battle of Scarface occurs.  
June 30th, 2027- Black Butte (WHEEEEEEZE) is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 1st, 2027- They camp out at Black Butte (HAHAHA, I CAN’T STOP WHEEZING) for the day in order to better prepare for the California-Oregon border, planned on July 4th.  
July 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Yreka occurs. Had I been a Gem, I’d be severely injured during this fight, and be disabled to the point of me having to go home and recover for a full year, but I wouldn’t die.   
July 3rd, 2027- Hornbrook is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. They utilize the rest of the day in order to set up battlements near the California-Oregon border.   
July 4th, 2027- A long and bitter battle at the California-Oregon border. They forge ahead, but many lives are lost on both sides, regardless of how well the other side plans. Even Jasper doesn’t want to talk about the results of the battle much, and it turns out to be so traumatizing for the both of them that they sleep together (with a hint of romance) and unwittingly fuse for the first time that night. However, in the morning, they wake up with a feeling of well-being, but are unaware of what happened.   
July 5th to July 9th, 2027- They spend the day traveling north, but specifically to uninhabited places so that the tired Gem forces can rest and prepare for future battles. Some even go home for a short period of time during this, although, of course, this is kept hush-hush.   
July 10th, 2027- The Battle of Ashland occurs. (We’re in Oregon now, in case you haven’t caught on.)  
July 11th, 2027- The Battle of Talent occurs.  
July 12th, 2027-Yonna is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 13th, 2027- The Battle of Medford occurs.  
July 14th, 2027- The Battle of Central Point occurs.  
July 15th, 2027- The Battle of Grants Pass occurs.  
July 16th, 2027- The Battle of Eagle Point occurs.   
July 17th, 2027- The Battle of Merlin occurs. Not nearly as epic as you may think it’d be.   
July 18th, 2027- Butte Falls is taken (with a name like that, you wouldn’t expect anything different). Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 19th, 2027- The Battle of Galice occurs.   
July 20th, 2027- Chiloquin is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.  
July 21st, 2027- The Battle of Shady Cove occurs.  
July 22nd, 2027- Glendale is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 23rd, 2027- Prospect is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 24th, 2027- Azalea is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
July 25th, 2027- The Battle of Cow Creek occurs. As you can tell, nothing eventful happens there, at least for a battle.   
July 26th, 2027- The Battle of Drew occurs.   
July 27th, 2027- The Battle of Canyonville occurs.   
July 28th, 2027- Fourmile is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. From then on, Fourmile is used a beach resort for the Gems who are homesick for Ocean- I mean, Beach City.  
July 29th, 2027- The Battle of Myrtle Creek occurs.  
July 30th, 2027- The Battle of Camas Valley occurs.   
July 31st, 2027- Tenmile is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 1st, 2027- The Battle of Winston occurs.   
August 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Bandon occurs. It could’ve been used as the beach resort, but because of the higher population there, it actually resulted in a battle, which resulted in a lot more damage compared to Fourmile.   
August 3rd, 2027- Bullards is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over. The area was considered for the resort, but because of the eyesore the Battle of Bandon caused in terms of damage, it was turned into a small naval base for the Gem Army (the most crucial ones are back down in California). In addition, the debris from the Battle of Bandon was used as protection around Bullards.   
August 4th, 2027- The Battle of Green occurs.   
August 5th, 2027- The Battle of Roseburg occurs. Due to the name, they are granted the same freedom as Obie. Freedoms are halted from towns now due to their already somewhat excessive amount.   
August 6th, 2027- Chemult is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 7th, 2027- Clearwater is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 8th, 2027- The Battle of Glide occurs.   
August 9th, 2027- Oakland is taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 10th, 2027- The Battle of Hawthorne occurs.  
August 11th, 2027- The Gems proceed north and find a mountain called Diamond Peak. They establish a military base around this area, but it is kept relatively small and hidden, and is instead established as a cultural hub for the Gems. However, there are no battles this day. Developments are made planning the Battle of Portland, as they are approaching that general area.   
August 12th, 2027- The Battle of Rice Hill occurs.   
August 13th, 2027- The Battle of Kellogg-Yoncella occurs.  
August 14th, 2027- The Gems decide to take a break, establishing more plans for the Battle of Portland and developing all aspects of the offensive thus far.   
August 15th, 2027- The Battle of Drain occurs.  
August 16th, 2027- Elkton is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 17th, 2027- They travel north, but no battles happen. They use this time to further debate Portland, but most of the day is just devoted to the Gems’ physical and mental recovery.   
August 18th, 2027- Dorena is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 19th, 2027- The Battle of McCredle Springs occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 128  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 10 troops, 3 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries:  
Humans: 40 troops, 12 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Total casualties:  
August 20th, 2027- Oakridge is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 21st, 2027-The Battle of Cottage Grove occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 414  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 33 troops, 11 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Injuries:  
Humans: 132 troops, 44 civilians  
Gems: 15  
Total casualties:  
August 22nd, 2027- Lorane is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
August 23rd-25th, 2027- They use this time to relax and celebrate one of their major holidays, which celebrates all of the blessings of summer and the preparation for the general cooling of the Earth. Some Gems use this time to briefly go home.   
August 26th, 2027- The Battle of Alma occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 357  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 29 troops, 10 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:  
Humans: 116 troops, 39 civilians  
Gems: 13  
Total casualties:   
August 27th, 2027- The Battle of Creswell occurs.   
Casualties during the battle: 220  
Deaths:  
Humans: 18 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 72 troops, 24 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
August 28th, 2027- The Battle of Lowell occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 42  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 12 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Total casualties:  
August 29th, 2027- The Battle of Pleasant Hill occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 227  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 18 troops, 6 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Injuries:  
Humans: 72 troops, 24 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Total casualties:  
August 30th, 2027 -The Battle of Eugene occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 6,850  
Casualties during the battle:   
Deaths:  
Humans: 548 troops, 129 civilians  
Gems: 61  
Injuries:  
Humans: 2,192 troops, 731 civilians  
Gems: 244  
August 31st, 2027- The Battle of Coburg occurs. Fought as a cooldown battle from the Battle of Eugene, one of the war’s most devastating battles to date.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 46  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 4 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 16 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 2  
Total casualties:  
September 1st, 2027- They take a break from the brutal battle of Eugene to rest and recover.   
September 2nd, 2027- The Battle of Marcola occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 55  
Casualties during the war:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 4 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 16 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Total casualties:  
September 3rd, 2027- The Battle of Junction City occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 247  
Deaths:  
Humans: 20 troops, 10 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:   
Humans: 80 troops, 40 civilians  
Gems: 12  
Total casualties:  
September 4th, 2027- The Battle of Harrisburg occurs.   
Approximate number of troops on both sides: 153  
Deaths:  
Humans: 6 troops, 2 civilians  
Gems: 1  
September 5th, 2027- Monroe is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
September 6th, 2027- The Battle of Brownsville occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides:72  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 6 troops, 2 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries:  
Humans: 24 troops, 8 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Total casualties:  
September 7th, 2027 to September 14th, 2027- They travel north, but no battles occur.  
September 15th, 2027- Halsey (not the singer) is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.  
September 16th, 2027-October 3rd, 2027- The Gems travel north for a little while, then take a break to celebrate the fall equinox. Some of them choose to go home during this time, a period of going home that has been the longest yet so far.   
October 4th, 2027- The Battle of Albany occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 2,179  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 174 troops, 58 civilians  
Gems: 19  
Injuries:  
Humans: 696 troops, 232 civilians  
Gems: 77  
Total casualties:  
October 5th, 2027- The Battle of Sublimity occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 237  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:   
Humans: 9 troops, 3 civilians  
Gems:  
1  
INjuries:  
Humans: 36 troops, 12 civilians  
Gems:4  
Total casualties:  
October 6th, 2027- The Battle of Stayton occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 660  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 26 troops, 9 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:  
Humans: 78 troops, 27 civilians  
Gems: 12  
Total casualties:  
October 7th, 2027- The Battle of Lyons occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 50  
Deaths:  
Humans: 4 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 16 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 2  
October 8th, 2027- The Battle of Mill City occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 78  
Deaths:  
Humans: 6 troops, 2 civilians  
Gems:0  
Injuries:  
Humans: 24 troops, 8 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Total casualties:  
October 9th, 2027- The Battle of Salem occurs, one of the most taxing to both forces so far and one of the most memorable of the war, albeit it took much less strategizing than the Battle of Portland will.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 6,938  
Deaths:  
Humans: 555 troops, 105 civilians  
Gems: 62   
Injuries:  
Humans: 2,220 troops, 420 civilians (OHHHHH)  
Gems: 248  
Total casualties:  
October 10th, 2027- The Battle of Keizer occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,588  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 127 troops, 42 civilians  
Gems: 14  
Injuries:  
Humans: 508 troops, 169 civilians  
Gems: 56  
October 11th, 2027- The Battle of Silverton occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 426  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 34 troops, 11 civilians  
Gems: 4  
Injuries:   
Humans: 136 troops, 45 civilians  
Gems: 15  
Total casualties:   
October 12th, 2027- Simnasho is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 13th, 2027- Dant is taken. Because of the very low huan population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 14th, 2027- Ripplebrook is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 15th, 2027- Three Lynx s taken. Because of the very low population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
October 16th, 2027- The Battle of Woodburn occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,043  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 83 troops, 28 civilians  
Gems: 9  
Injuries:  
Humans: 332 troops, 111 civilians  
Gems: 37  
October 17th, 2027- The Battle of Colton occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 272  
Casalties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 11 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries: 44 troops, 15 civilians  
Gems: 5  
October 18th, 2027- The Battle of McMinniville occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,385  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 111 troops, 37 civilians  
Gems: 12  
Injuries:  
Humns: 444 troops, 148 civilians  
Gems: 49  
October 19th, 2027- The Battle of Estacada occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 281  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 11 troops, 4 civilians  
Gems: 1  
Injuries:  
Humans: 44 troops, 15 civilians  
Gems: 5  
October 20th, 2027- The Battle of Pacific City occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 41  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 3 troops, 1 civilian  
Gems: 0  
Injuries:   
Humans: 9 troops, 3 civilians  
Gems: 1  
October 21st, 2027- The Battle of Tualatin occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 2,208  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 88 troops, 29 civilians  
Gems: 10  
Injuries:  
Humans: 352 troops, 117 civilians  
Gems: 39  
October 22nd, 2027- The Gems make an extremely fast push towards Portland and perform the dreaded battle. Everything that they’ve been preparing themselves for for the past month and a half has come. Eyeball’s strategy comes into full play. Despite all the armies’ best efforts, the battle is one of the most brutal in the entire war, with almost astronomical losses on both sides, and it is a day no human or Gem will forget. Portland continues to hold vigils for those who have died in the battle long after the war is over, and some of the Gems even participate as well.   
Without further ado, let’s get this show on the road.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 52,249  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 17,416 troops, 5,805 civilians  
Gems: 231. One of Eyeball’s biggest achievements, as this is an extremely small number against the humans’ losses.   
Injuries:   
Humans:   
Injuries:  
Humans: EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE BATTLE is wounded to some extent. Something the Gems pride themselves on to this day. 22,861 civilians.  
Gems: 770   
From October 23rd to October 25th, the Gems take a much-deserved break. During this time, some Gems even go home. Both sides mourn their dead, the Gems celebrate their victory, and both armies prepare for the next battles ahead. This is the turning point in the war, when those who haven’t been paying attention to the status of the war know for sure that the Gems will win. Some humans panic and seek citizenship in countries like Canada, Great Britain, and Australia despite the fact that there are Gems living there as well; some think this is the end of humanity. The period that follows from October 23rd-December 2nd of 2027 is known as the Great Gem Panic, when hatred towards civilian Gems grows tremendously. During this time, Bismuth is caught in a brutal fight with some of the humans. One Gem is slowly killed after a human couple,, who have discovered that her body has turned into a weak hologram as well, begin attacking her with kitchen knives. In total, she has seven wounds, them working their way up- once on each foot, twice on the lower area of each leg, once in the hip on each side, and twice in the chest as the final blows. Bismuth doesn’t witness it happening, but finds her dying, and manages to hold and comfort her before she dies and buries her due to her having no family. Bismuth develops an edge against humans, not being *quite* as accepting of them as she used to be.   
October 26th, 2027- The Battle of Troutdale occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,130  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 52 troops, 17 civilians  
Gems: 6  
Injuries:  
Humans: 208 troops, 70 civilians  
Gems: 23  
Total casualties:  
October 27th, 2027- The Battle of Camas occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 954  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 76 troops, 25 civilians  
Gems: 8  
Injuries:  
Humans: 304 troops, 101 civilians  
Gems: 34  
October 28th, 2027- The Battle of Vancouver occurs. This is taxing, but not as much as Portland was. By now, the Gems are tired. Samhain isn’t for three days, but after the Battle of Vancouver having come right after the Battle of Portland, their morale is low, their bodies and minds exhausted. So they take their break early and come back November 3rd, with a large amount of Gems going home to spend time with their families before going back.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 12,943  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 492 troops, 164 civilians  
Gems: 55  
Injuries:  
Humans: 1,968 troops, 656 civilians  
Gems: 219  
October 29th, 2027-November 2nd, 2027- Their break.   
November 3rd, 2027- The Battle of Five Corners occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,453  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 58 troops, 19 civilians  
Gems: 6  
Injuries:  
Humans: 232 troops, 77 civilians  
Gems: 26  
November 4th, 2027- Timber is taken. Because of the very low human population, there is no bloodshed, and the area is simply taken over.   
November 5th, 2027- The Battle of Scappoose occurs.   
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 599  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 24 troops, 8 civilians  
Gems: 3  
Injuries:  
Humans: 96 roops, 32 civilians  
Gems: 11  
Total casualties:   
November 6th, 2027- The November 6th Battle occurs. Better than calling it the Battle of Battle Ground…  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 1,676  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 67 troops, 22 civilians  
Gems: 7  
Injuries:  
Humans: 268 troops, 89 civilians  
Gems: 30  
November 7th, 2027- The Battle of Woodland occurs.  
Approximate number of troops sent by both sides: 4,842  
Casualties during the battle:  
Deaths:  
Humans: 387 troops, 129 civilians  
Gems: 43  
Innjuries:  
Humans: 1,548 troops, 516 civilians  
Gems: 172

Overall, the war killed about 4,300,000 and injured about 17,200,000.   
1,075,000 Gems were killed, or about 2.15% of the Gem population, compared to approximately 3,000,000 humans, or about 1% of the human population.   
About 8.6% of the Gem population was injured at all in any battle, compared to about 4% of the human population.   
3% of the Gem population was permanently disabled from the war, compared to about 1.5% of the human population.   
About 10% of the Gem population, or 5,000,000, served in the war, compared to the humans’ 5%.  
Overall, the war killed about 4,300,000 and injured about 17,200,000.   
1,075,000 Gems were killed, or about 2.15% of the Gem population, compared to approximately 3,000,000 humans, or about 1% of the human population.   
About 8.6% of the Gem population was injured at all in any battle, compared to about 4% of the human population.   
3% of the Gem population was permanently disabled from the war, compared to about 1.5% of the human population.   
About 10% of the Gem population, or 5,000,000, served in the war, compared to the humans’ 5%.

Wow, dotarłeś do końca moich notatek! Jaki wysiłek. Ponieważ zaszedłeś tak daleko, nie zostaniesz bez nagrody. Oto kilka kluczowych spoilerów, ponieważ jesteś tak oddany tej historii:  
\- Wojna trwała tylko rok.  
-Żadna z ważnych postaci nie żyje.  
\- Bój się bardzo, bardzo Jaspera.


	32. Season Three, Chapter One, Part One: Zhayna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I APOLOGIZE for the info dump about midway through the chapter. That is actually an extremely condensed, bare-bones version of much of the chronological aspects of the info dumping I did via the notes. I kept it as short as possible. I know I could’ve told it in the same linear fashion that I’ve told the rest of the story, but it’s very important to note here that this is not Jasper’s story. Jasper will get her own story and get her own credit as soon as it’s her turn. And this is one of the chapters that Jasper is the most influential in, simply because she is the most influential person on the Gem side in this civil conflict.  
This is Steven’s story.  
Steven, in all aspects, is not a warrior, even if Rose by all means was. But one of the main messages of Steven Universe is that STEVEN IS NOT ROSE. He is an ambassador, and, with the exception of stopping monsters on other planets in his spare time, does not mean to be anything else unless he absolutely has to. Meaning all of his influence in the war would be nothing more and nothing less than a diplomatic nightmare. It would arguably be a lot more tedious for you to read over and over again how Steven tried to get this country and that country not to side with the United States, his endless discussions with both Jasper and the human military general, and him worrying his now twenty-year-old as off than it would be for you to read a brief info dump on what happened. If you have any other suggestions for me, feel free to leave them in the comments. And thank you for letting me explain myself.

Zhayna, quite simply, is the formal word in the Gem language for "war".

Steven’s blood burned inside of him, the same burning that hadn’t been done for quite some time now. The last time this happened, there was no blood to burn. Only crystallic material. Some say that was the burn of a rebellious spirit, in which case he’d do his best not to tell the person driving him what was happening. But deep down, he felt as if it were the burn of something more. The burn of something greater than not necessarily himself, but the world he’d dealt with since he was a child. The burn of it feeling as if it was something more than that life’s intimacy.  
The burn, in short, of the world crumbling in on itself.  
Somewhere the kids back in Beach City would only refer to as what used to be the Wild West, Steven sat in the secondhand Jeep the Gems had stolen from a small human caravan. His eyes were slightly wide the way the swimming tourists looked when they saw a wave big enough for it to bash their heads on the continental shelf, his body perched on the edge of the seat. The tardy heat of October 2023 was a little blistering back in Ocean CIty, but was nothing compared to what it was like in Nevada- it screeched into him. Seeped into every part of him. Became just as much of a part of him as his Gem was, and when heat sunk that deep into him, there was no way he could complain at that point. A few tumbleweeds rolled on past, but that was nothing compared to what stretched out in front of him. Nothingness, yes, but nothingness was full of places for both humans and Gems to be. And even if he were half of both, he had no idea of their intent. That wasn’t an issue back then. Oh, God, if only he could go back to where it wasn’t an issue back then...  
Jasper said nothing about it.  
She considered talking to her Diamond, but found she couldn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she figured out how to put the Jeep into second gear without elbowing her trusty M240 and tried to ignore how her shoulders were permanently tensed.  
What was he on this trip for? He could barely keep it straight, and counting the amount of bolts on the extra shelf of metal surrounding the Jeep in order to make it more bulletproof only took him so far in terms of occupying himself. When he found he couldn’t possibly pull it out of his brain, Jasper was happily obliged to remind him. She was happily obliged to do just about anything for him after Lapis, of all people, broke the news to her about Pink Diamond’s transformation after recording Pearl’s footage to a 1998 repurposed VHS tape.  
Still, Jasper needed some way to address her Diamond. “You requested you oversee the production of you-r, uh, healing matter, my Diamond.” The word “spit” wouldn’t leave her mouth unless she was screaming at the humans of what she would do to the humans’ bodies. “We’ve been at a standstill for awhile,” she said with instant regret- unlike him, she was no politician-, “and this mass-production may be what we need to at least take the western half of the state. I’ll do my best to drive through some of the less impacted areas. But in order to get there, we have to get through the Delamar Pass, which may…” she trailed off. Instinctively, Steven gripped the edge of his seat, wondering once again why in the world the Gems couldn’t have possibly had time to repair the seatbelts after the crash this Jeep very obviously went through, metal plating or no metal plating .  
And what, he had to ask himself, was he even doing here with Jasper, of all people? The last time Steven had seen her before the President signed the order that still put Connie into nightmares at night and him with daydreams of what could happen a little too vivid for him to tell Connie what happened in them, he’d told her he was going to leave for his tour around the United States.  
That was two years ago.  
What’d happened since then? He’d first seen her almost immediately after he came back down from up north and they spent eight hours in the cave, discussing the war order and its implications. She’d kept a notebook hidden at the back near where a few blue crabs had gathered, frightened from the waves and occasional hurricane. Steven saw none of it the entire eight hours he was there, but he knew at least the basics of why Jasper had told him not to go west.  
“I’ve been thinking of this for awhile, my Diamond,” began Jasper then, but even if Steven could launch to defensive action if prodded hard enough, he was averse to two people fighting in the streets, let alone a civil war in his home country among the two ethnic groups he’d descended from. And so he pretended to listen to her, nodding at the points to where she vaguely emphasized her excitement about this or that maneuver, but on the whole, he only absorbed the most critical of details.  
It wasn’t going to be a defensive war, Steven should make no mistake about that. Its people were capable of it, that was certain. But as a country, the United States hadn’t worked like that since immediately after the Revolutionary War, and it was most definitely not going to work like it now when they were directly antagonizing an ethnic group originating from a planet other than this one. And Jasper’s goal, altogether, was to storm the capitol, not necessarily to take over, but to then apprehend the President and prepare to execute him should he not follow their terms. However, this wasn’t going to entail a mad dash towards the astronomically close Capitol relative to Beach City compared to where the Gems were about to gather their resources. Their first aim was to gather up more of them and with the production efficiency of a Ford factory, since Homeworld was too embroiled in its own civil conflict to give them much aid other than in the form of written words of them allying with either side. Steven and her discussed at that point on end, on a painful end, whether or not she was going to place Kindergartens along the desert. Firstly, Jasper confided to him that she had no intentions of terraforming- that would be useless, and if that were her goal, she would’ve attempted it herself immediately after Peridot failed to do so with the robots she was attempting to control. And secondly, Steven told her that if she could prove to him that there was an absolute to the situation, that there was no other foreseeable way that she could win a crucial battle or even turn the tide of the war over to their side, then she would be allowed to not create an old Kindergarten, but repurpose one of the old ones laying along those states.  
Sides, Steven told himself, over and over, in agony. Which side was he going to be on? With each word of advice Steven told anyone involved in this war, or even debating about it with someone he knew, he would betray one of them. Now all he had to work on was ensuring he wasn’t torn apart with whatever he told them.  
That was all Steven had absorbed in that period of time, which shifted from agonizingly long to simply confusing as he found himself in daydreams to the point of dissociation. Of all the tactics Jasper was blathering on about, he was using one simple one that triumphed over him hearing most, if not all of hers.  
She was going to take California first; while the human population wasn’t what she was after- she was more of a strategist than she was a sadist-  
As blind as Steven had been to it, before Jasper had even started her campaign, some of the Gems had professionally barricaded the town of Beach City with sixty-foot-high walls that led the humans to believe their constant raids of the Gem sect had finally proven effective. So by the time Steven came back from the north to Beach City, the attacks doubled, tripled, the humans attempting to pass through and even over the walls. Some days, Steven thought they would pass through, and on those days, he stopped trying to keep his head from doubling over into insanity while trying to keep the war in check and instead went on his own front lines defending the walls. Soon as the humans saw there was one of their own there, they slowly slunk away by the end of the day. But in that day alone, the walls had accrued half the graffiti that the Berlin Wall did. God, Steven had remembered, and I remember crawling all over that piece of all back in DC when I was a kid…  
From April 2022 to August 2022, the Gems fought their way up California. Along the way, Steven was the main person that the cries of both battle-ruined humans and Gems reached, on top of his attempts to negotiate his way from the conflict exploding into a world war. While the Gems had been notorious for their warfare since the days they had colonized Homeworld’s first moon, the humans still inflicted their own surprising bout of cruelty as well. Steven was well-protected inside of Beach City, but from the POWs captured from the Gem side, the humans still divulged all that they needed to know at least to the war pertaining to Gem physiology. They crafted bullets that latched on to the Gem and destroyed it from the inside out, with the last sensation the Gem in question ever feeling being a burning, at first trivial, but then increasing to their body being in agony to the point where it felt like their holographic body had limbs, and those limbs were being flayed on the hot sun’s surface itself. They made aircraft that fused into one similar to how Gems had the ability to fuse, which equalized the capacity of both sides’ air force and lead to a treaty agreeing for neither side to use it on the basis of a sort of mutually assured destruction. They made weapons that, by the second or third month of the war, ensured that poofing was nothing more than a laughable term of the past. There was only the shattering, dying, dying, shattering, left and right, all around the sidewalks, crystallic material flooding the sewers and alleyways. That weekend, human families would often spend their time cleaning the gutters, tossing what was essentially dead womens’ bodies out of them and leaving them prone in their lawns to be little more than an obstacle for a lawnmower later.  
Most of all, it was a war between males and females, the human forces comprising the former and the Gems comprising the latter. Despite the latter’s power, the former’s lust for the latter couldn’t ever be completely contained, and while some Gems had formed albeit clandestine relationships with members of the human forces and created a sort of truce among the both of them, some humans had been thoughtless and graped them as much as the Gems were graping the humans’ homeland. The Gems who’d been subjected to this had found themselves with tears pouring down their eyes from the experience at best and their Gem swelling a month later, a sure sign of pregnancy, them being unable to fight after six or so months, and death only a nine-month countdown away. And while it did happen from the Gem forces to human forces occasionally, it was astronomically low compared to the amount of Gems dying immediately after their child took their first breath. No hormones meant no birth control that didn’t take the form of a painful piece of material shoved up somewhere most humans didn’t know about until they were teenagers.  
Steven had turned nineteen.  
Steven's task, despite how necessary it was, was one that no one envied. All of his work as ambassador to all of these different countries had reached a climax soon as the war was declared. Here, the most critical countries were not the United States' enemies, but their allies'. Them aiding the United States would result in one of two outcomes: either the Gems would be obliterated or the retaliation from the Gems would be enough to devastated the human population before the Gems were obliterated. Through those years, Steven's main strategy was to bring up all of the times the United States had failed to help its allies in their own civil conflicts.  
But what Steven saw, in all of it, was tedium. It was nightmarish what had been put on his shoulders to do, yes, but through it all was the same nightmare. Monotony. Wake up, eat whatever you can, negotiate, go to sleep. Over and over. The sounds of human attacks on the fence, over and over. The interviews taking what he said out of context, over and over. The worried look on Connie's, Pearl's, his father's face, over and over. It had all become routine.  
Panic had become routine.  
Through it all, however, the Gems’ aim was to reach Nevada, it having the largest gem deposits in the country, which may or may not have been brought on by the Diamonds. But they nevertheless collected whatever gems they could along their trail. It was some poor Zircon and Ruby duo’s job to interrogate one of the locals and extract the coordinates of the gem deposits in the state; it was Jasper’s job to apply that knowledge, and whatever strategy she could muster, to the forces’ route. However, before she’d taken her trip, she’d made her lengthy list of negotiations with her Diamond, the most critical one being not to establish any Kindergartens. She was reluctant about it, but an order from her Diamond was an order from her Diamond.  
By the time the Gem forces had moved east towards the states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, it was January of 2023. An entire year had begun with Spinel alive and there being peacetime, and had ended with neither of them existing. During one of the worst blizzards to strike the northern states that decade, Jasper ordered the southernmost forces that had remained in California to retreat and join them in Washington. Only the cleverest of humans took notice; the rest were too embroiled in either the daily news or writing down all of their contacts that didn’t live in the state of California for them to emigrate to, the one time they were one step ahead of the team of Rubies and Zircons in charge of management at the borders, and the one time Jasper had to replace an entire team of Gems. From then to June, the Gem forces then proceeded their way east, continuing to take territories and tricking much of the humans into thinking they were going for more populated areas such as Illinois and New York. Still, a group of Gems stayed behind at California, and would stay there until that August, when Jasper would make a flanking maneuver from North Dakota down to where Jasper was driving Steven now.  
And where they’d had a stalemate for two months. The humans had begun to launch a dangerous offensive from California to the Nevada border, which was completely unprotected save for a few teams scouting for resources to build bases. While the Gems were still entirety in California, the northern states assumed the Gems were going for their high populations next and began to panic, plunging themselves headfirst into the political world enough for Steven to be simply too overwhelmed. They’d managed to garner enough monetary support, sheer numbers enlisting from their states, and incentive for DC to invest much of its funding on projects (barring weapons of mass destruction only) specifically designed for the war. Designed to tear the Gems apart. That alone was enough for a stalemate. That was barely enough for a stalemate. Neither side wanting to throw in the towel. Yet neither side wanting to sacrifice more lives. Both sides tearing their own selves apart with this dichotomy, and applying all the cognitive dissonance they could. Jasper had to chuckle through it all- her and the human general may have to kill each other in the end, but if life had turned out different- if both their mindsets hadn’t been shaped the way they were- they would’ve been friends. The best of friends.  
Steven had turned twenty.  
All of this wasn’t to say the Gems were wholly innocent in their conduct, however, thought Steven as his mind broiled under the dichotomies of the Nevada sun. So penetrating, so damaging, so ready to turn the landscape of an entire state into a desert where there may have been just as much ocean as there was in Beach City, yet so easily deflected and made powerless with something as simple as a Jeep roof…  
During the first battle, the Battle of Vallejo, there was the most blatant example of Gem atrocities. A Californian city in the San Francisco bay area numbering about one hundred and thirty thousand, it was the first time any of the Gems, which were themselves brought to the battle in thousands and had thousands more reserves, saw conflict for thousands of years. The urge for it was most clearly defined in Jasper, in the way she had felt and acted for nearly as long as the time between battle for her, but it was something that nearly every Gem that day could feel, even if it was something they had repressed deep in their minds. They could feel the utter mania coming from their brains, as if the Diamonds had latched an implant inside of them, as they killed wantonly, without any discrimination as to whether or not the humans wore a soldier’s uniform or not, or even whether or not they were adults. Four, five was the average each of the thousands of Gems killed before they realized heir folly, trembled, and went back into formation.  
Still, for the rest of the conflict up until now, their weaponry was equally as brutal as the humans’.  
In the end, the Gem territories in the United States reached as far south as Vallejo, as north as the border between the country and Canada, as east as the middle of north Dakota, and then turned into a triangle during the final flanking maneuver towards the middle of Nevada.  
Steven fiddled with his phone, his lifeline out here in the desert in terms of contacting the ambassadors. He was supposed to contact the Canadian one, a chore he was supposed to maintain daily in order to stay the nearly fifty thousand personnel that were part of that country’s army. But how could he do this, he wondered, with no signal here in the desert?  
He heard something beyond feeling. Felt something beyond hearing. It couldn’t have been the cybernetic implant Peridot had put in his Gem; that was only to keep his powers from spiraling out of control. Only a few minutes later would he know it was instinct.  
But there was a good reason Pink Diamond had engineered the theoretically perfect supersoldier.  
“ZASTAS TAM!”. The most commonly accepted Gem term for “get down”.  
Steven hadn’t done this since him and Connie were living at the condo in DC. Before he even told his limbs what to do, he was down on the floor of the Jeep, covering his head, trying to keep it together as the van swerved from side to side, Jasper taking a few seconds to frantically search for cover. He didn’t hear much of the bullets due to the armor plating that surrounded the Jeep, but there were a few that still had the power to shatter the windows after a few times. His heart pounded, but after a few moments, he found he could find a strategy. But this was Jasper he was talking about, and anything that smacked of a suggestion from him would be nothing else than an order. He didn’t have the luxury of brainstorming out loud.  
The Jeep swerved twice. Three times.  
He needed a plan. Two. Three.  
Come on, come on, what do you have around you, what do the two of you have in common, what do the two of you have as differences, this isn’t any different than you analyzing the aspects of a country, think, think, think…  
Four times the Jeep swerved. During the fifth, he could hear Jasper begging under the flaming god of the Nevada sun, “Come on, just five miles, just five miles... you stupid piece of human machiner-”  
But when a bullet nicked Jasper in the shoulder, crystallic material forming a sort of clot to keep even more crystallic material from leaking out onto the Jeep floor, Steven knew he didn’t have any option besides to voice the strategy he already had, no matter how imperfect it was.  
“Jasper!” cried out Steven, continuing before she had the chance to address him as anything. “I’ll drive! Use the gun on them!”  
Jasper nodded, and the two of them climbed over each other in a matter of seconds and switched places, the both of them holding their breaths when the Jeep went unattended for those few seconds.  
Seven screamed when the first bullet smashed into the windshield to the right, but as he drove- forward, he assumed, that was the way Jasper had driven him for the past hour- he realized that the bullet was normal. The humans weren’t using anything altered. But before they’d started driving, he’d heard a firearms team of Quartzes that weren’t quite as large as Jasper demonstrating what must have been a brand new issue of the weapon.  
It had decimated the target. Blooming outwards. Hit in the chest, but the impact didn’t stop until it reached the outside of both its shoulders.  
Whether it was a matter of the humans lagging behind on weapons development or whether it was deliberate, Steven didn’t have time to decide as the second bullet made him duck and practically kiss the steering wheel.  
“LIL’ TO THE LEFT” was all Steven could understand from Jasper, who by now was at the back of the Jeep, before all he heard was bullets.  
And the second sound he heard behind that was his heart pounding in his chest to the point to where he had to swallow it. It was the taste of death; he knew it that much. He’d tasted it, of course, when they were back in the apartment, and in all the times to where he had to stop mobs of humans back in Beach City who were protesting any move Steven made that they perceived to be remotely against the human forces. But it had never loomed over him this close before.  
Slowly, slowly, the bullets slowed down. No more came close to Steven, save for one that’d come close enough to the other bullet in the windshield that a part of it collapsed in on itself. He could hear the Jeep creaking as Jasper inched her way behind, although it was difficult due to how deep the trembles were in his hands. By the time Jasper was close enough to see out of the rear view window, he could clearly see that the wound in her shoulder had worsened.  
It was too dark of a thought for him to have conceived had he been back in Beach City, but he found the thought gave him small wings, boosted him towards the end of him having to drive through gunfire. Normal bullets, huh?  
Before long, Jasper’d made her way up to the backseat. Before Steven could open his mouth to say anything, she shook her head. “It’s nothing, moy Diament. We’re two miles there anyway.”  
Yeah, wouldn’t do anything to open up any first aid kit, huh? thought Steven in reply; he nodded, half in an attempt to chase these thoughts away and ask why they were there to begin with.  
Still, Steven insisted on driving there. Jasper nodded, for once not taking it as a personal affront to her.  
And it took a few seconds more before Steven thought to form his first verbal question to her. Checkpoint. Checkpoint was the word. It was beyond videogames- everyone back at home thought it was a game. There had been board games, videogames, lighthearted chats about the entire war. Nobody knew which fronts the Gems had already taken. Nobody knew that thousands on both sides had already died. All they knew was that the humans were being treated reasonably well enough for there to be nothing exciting enough for the journalists, and that was all. The gutter-cleaning was reserved for the neighborhoods it inconvenienced.  
“Why- why was there a checkpoint there? In the middle of the desert?” He found he still had trouble breathing; he tried clutching a hand to one of his ribs to make himself slow down before realizing she’d go off in a tirade asking questions about if Steven was hurt and to what extent.  
“I’ll find out this minute, my Diamond,” she said before speaking rapid-fire Gem into her walkie-talkie. Within a few minutes, there was a team that passed by of what looked like Rubies equipped with sniper rifles with a laser sight larger and more robust than he’d ever expected to see. And within another minute, Steven found a parking spot next to the other Jeeps stored in a warehouse he at first had trouble seeing.  
“Heh, would’ve almost failed my driving test there,” muttered Steven as he switched the Jeep into park.  
Jasper nodded before handing Steven over to a single Peridot, surrounded by Quartzes. The Peridot nodded- not quite the salute he’d been wondering if everyone at the base he was in was expected to give- and waited for Steven to fall in formation behind her. Steven almost flinched as the Quartzes almost surrounded him, so there was almost no space around him except the Peridot and what she could see in her peripheral vision.  
“Welcome to the Silver Springs Base, Steven,” began the Peridot, “home to over three thousand of the Gem forces stationed on Nevada’s eastern front. Eastern, however, is relative, as there is a ten-mile stalemate gap between here and the western forces in Reno, and…”  
Steven did the same stately nod he’d learned how to do these past two years, even when him and Connie kept on discussing their marriage. He let himself notice a few things. Notice how, to the left, there was a poster about the humans building a two-planes-by-four-planes imitation of Gem spacecraft, and since then, naval warfare was called off. Notice how, a little off-center from where the poster was, there were a group of Nephrites unraveling a few maps and familiarizing themselves with land-based vehicles now that the program was over. Notice how, to the right, there was a map of where the Gems had taken their territory, the entirety of the northwestern half covered in red all while he had struggled to keep it contained in the eastern half.  
They should thank me was the last unwanted thought Steven suffered that day.  
He could’ve noticed more, but he was stopped by the sheer sterility of the room he’d been led to and the almost vacuum-space the team of Quartzes had formed behind him.  
“And here are the vials where your healing material is produced,” continued the Peridot. “We’ve made fifty of them since the conflict’s beginning, replicating the ability that Rose Quartz-” she couldn’t hide the tinge of venom in it, indicating that she was a Homeworld migrant prior to enlistment- “had during the Great War.” Another indicator- she had no idea what World War I had previously been called.  
She stopped in front of Steven. He was surprised- he thought she was going to launch into a few paragraphs more on the details of how the spit had been implemented in the battlefront.  
“Is...there something wrong?” was the first thing he thought to ask before the Peridot had a chance to speak.  
“No. Would you like a further analysis, or would you like to rest awhile? Surely you’ve had a long journey.” Perfectly Pearl-like. Perhaps there was a reason why she had migrated from Homeworld other than the general discontent and state of conflict there.  
“Yeah...yeah, actually. A nap would be nice,” Steven thought, having had no idea that the first thing he would be offered on a Gem military base in what must be a highly contested area was a nap.  
But when he was directed to the cots, he found he was being taken directly to the infirmary. He cringed- the Gems’ knowledge of humans clearly wasn’t perfect; humans normally slept in a room to themselves. But it was here that he realized that if he had any common sense, he’d toss that political load off of his shoulders, get whoever’s help he needed to streamline the process to peace, and to get a treaty signed before anyone else got hurt. Even, he thought, cringing, with the possibility of the humans treating them worse than they did before.  
He saw chaos. Most of what he saw were hundreds and hundreds of Gems on tables that had clearly poofed, reforming under heat lamps to speed up the process even if that meant the Gems would reform slightly, albeit permanently, damaged. There were two commonalities in the Gems he saw: they were all at least pleased, if not elated, to see him, and that they were all horribly maimed in some way. A Quartz stared at Steven from the cot directly next to him, her feet blown off by an explosive and the crystallic material struggling to repair a small hole in her chest, surrounded by a spiderweb of damage that was caused when the bullet’s force exploded inside of her. Steven shuddered, remembering the way the glass in the windshield had seemed to crack and form its own spiderweb. Two more Quartzes used each other for support, one of them with a thousand-yard stare and three fresh bullets in her belly perilously close to her gem, and the other with one bullet in her own stomach and three in her left arm, reassuring the other that the supply chain would be ready to deliver the healing material to the infirmary soon.  
What was there story? When did they migrate? Were they here this whole time? Were they here when Era Three began, or when the Diamonds had made their decree encouraging the Gems to migrate to Earth? Were they here because they’d successfully escaped from the Diamonds’ conflict, which had now spiraled into a war of attrition?  
Was this any better than the life they’d lived before?  
The only question he knew he could answer was whether or not this was what they envisioned when they learned they were going to willingly take the chance of laying down their lives for their species.  
Steven shook his head. In situations like this, every single one of those thousands of soldiers on the front lines would have more than their fill before those in the infirmary had so much as a drop. Every Gem he was seeing would eventually poof, and reform, and take their slightly, permanently, damaged place back on the battlefield.  
Soon as Steven shook his head, the Gems knew not to look at him. To let him rest, to let his head sift through everything and everyone in the room.  
To sift through the question, pummeling through his shoulders down to his back and up and down again, on why he’d possibly let the Gems and the humans go to war.  
_____


	33. Season Eight, Chapter One, Final Part: Pala

Pala, in comparison with zhayna, is a colloquial word for war, and is more commonly used in more rural areas in Homeworld, separated from the Diamonds. However, it became common among the Gem soldiers deployed in the first Gem War. However, now there is a second.   
The Gem translation for the first Gem war is entitled "Zhayna do Kodoros", translating into "The war against Rose's Colony", "Kodoros" being short for "Kolonia do Rosa", meaning "Rose's Colony".   
The slang used by Gem soldiers for this war is called "Pala Rosa", simply translating to "The War Against Rose".

Delmarva.  
Composed of one and a half million people in its Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia parts, it was nevertheless a peninsula that never seemed to appear on United States maps unless they were blown up to at least the size of half the wall. Most who came and left had no idea what it was. Most who stayed, and knew where the area was, were either the corn and watermelon farmers to the rest, struggling to maintain their farmers' markets now that fewer and fewer passer-bys were driving down the road to the beach towns, or residents of the beach towns. Beach cities, more like, a thought shared by Beach City's founder as he named it.  
Three million people would crowd in each beach town a summer. And even if that only equated to 250,000 people in town at the time, it was still a little-DC of its own.  
But there was still a sense of reverence to it all. Even without the Gem culture that had pervaded the area for so long before the war, there were still places one could go other than the sardine-can streets and boardwalks. Hidden away from all the hi-rise apartments and the gated communities of timeshare-renting suburbanites who were and weren’t at the same time aware of just how may people were in town other than them, there was indeed silence. You certainly could find it in Jasper’s cave or the few trees that existed at the end of Steven’s property line, or, perhaps most of all, in the private slice of the beachfront Steven had to himself, with the exception of Connie from time to time. Whether or not he was sheltered was a question for those outside the town to answer; the poorest anyone ever got in Beach City was the lower middle class, and, if it weren’t for the Gems living here, the largest source of scandal any of the neighborhoods would face would be a few instances of un-sacred premarital ex.  
Away from any scandal, however, were the plants and animals, considered all but foreign to the mainlanders or even those on the more western parts of Delmarva. The trees there were thinner due to the more highly-salinated soil, and most of the beach dunes were there since before even the Gems arrived there.  
But closer from the neck-thin trees on the edges of Steven’s childhood home were the rest of the plants. Most of them were planted by Greg when he and Rose were still dating- the black adders, purple snapdragons that Rose couldn’t stop laughing about because they looked like little grapes to her, the tangos, orange snapdragons that got little attention from Rose at all, and the trumpet creepers, red daylilies that Greg spent hours toiling away on and that never seemed to come up except in sand.  
Sand. The town lived and breathed sand. The coarse, maddening sand. In their lungs, in their eyes, in every embarrassing nook and cranny of their bodies, in every belonging they owned…  
The animals were more along the lines of the beach. At times, Atlantic white-sided dolphins passed by, a sight that told a young Steven that there was still hope. The little things that keep war at bay, God knows how Steven would’ve turned out if there weren’t dolphins at his door from time to time....  
But dolphins, and all other sorts of natural wildlife, had an aversion to artificial barriers. Artificial barriers that the Gems deemed needed to be there now, or else God knows what the humans would do to them. Delmarva had turned into a gridlocked, messy hub that was made to look to others that there was order. But the order was only there to form a canopy over what happened in the streets. A Gem screaming in pain and humiliation as a human man, and his interested girlfriend, pulled down her pants and did what they liked with her. A few mollified Gems launching a peaceful counterprotest to the humans, while a mob of furious ones screamed death threat after death threat at the humans. The humans responding in their own death threats, both sides wanting the war to be over, but for their own reasons and their own reasons alone.  
Order was more recognizable in the laws. For everyone, human or not, there were a host of them that applied. While Steven was accompanying Jasper in the west, Pearl read them to herself as a daily ritual, it being her duty to make sure all the rest complied with them under penalty with the power to nullify both Marty’s check to Greg and a month of a partially-assisted Greg operating the car wash:  
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, six feet must be maintained in between both species.  
All human vendors have the right to refuse service to Gems.  
Gem vendors do not possess this same right, as under this uncertain time of war, humans’ need for goods is all the more imperative.  
Gems are not permitted to vote in elections, as there is no process in place for them yet to obtain voting IDs. However, Gems are still considered citizens of the United States.  
exual relations among Gem couples are not permitted in public unless one Gem has sufficiently shapeshifted enough for humans to identify her as a male out of respect for other humans.  
Humans may not attend any explicitly Gem area of worship, and vice versa.  
If a human feels as if a Gem condones a negative presence towards them, whether or not it entails threats of violence or violence itself, then they have the right to exercise defense in the way of arms (guns) as they see fit. Martial law may be in place, as it already has been in several parts of Worcester County.  
If a human is caught (a): reciting a Gem prayer, (b): exercising the will to side with the Gems in this current civil conflict, or (c ): has shown proof that they agree with the Gems’ list of grievances against the humans of the United States, then they will be labeled as an enemy of the states and must be patriated (deported) to a country of their choice.  
Humans are allowed to learn Gem, yet out of respect for them, may not speak it.  
She made it halfway through. But as soon as she felt the thoughts recede of Spinel and how much of a difficult year Greg was going to face ahead of him, Connie went her way to her side, gently told her how harmful this was for her, and folded up the paper.  
But the amount of thoughts swirling around in Connie’s mind were by no means forgiving to her, either. Hel, her whole life had been unforgiving since the day she married Steven. Her entire day, her entire year was focused on keeping the war at bay, on negotiating treaties with other countries on the extent they were allowed to assist the United States, the Gems, or both, and keeping Steven safe from the almost-weekly but small assassination attempts.  
She and Steven had even discussed whether or not the marriage should continue at all…  
But continue it did. Her only consolation now was that Beach City wasn’t nearly as gridlocked as it appeared to be, or that it was gridlocking her life as much as it appeared to be. Steven and Jasper- it seemed that in the few weeks following the declaration, he’d spent more time with her than with his own wife- had commissioned the building of “facilities’ in not only the states Delmarva was after, but also across more of the southern states, which surprisingly encouraged a civilian militia regardless of species. They extended up north into Pennsylvania, but farther north meant enough investigative journalism to uncover what they really were. They were bases, bases to train Gems and were built to quickly convert into public schools. It was both Connie and Sapphire’s work to help them through the rigorous-ad-nauseam process of filing all the paperwork for them to get into their state’s education system, even if they were southern states and frowned upon all this bureaucracy. They took all the advice the local citizens had to offer on hiding weapons. In no time, the media was going on and on about how great it was that Steven was extending Little Homeschool to all these states, albeit the anchors spent over half their articles ranting about the Gems’ English skills (Connie had never met a single Gem who didn’t learn fifth-grade level English in a matter of a few months).  
The Gem education, however, was just a cog. It joined a few hundred things that Steven and Connie worked on, speeches included, that did its work to reassure humans that, no matter what, even if the Gems won the war, no harm would come to humans. They’d done tours of the cities in California that had been taken over, making sure to film in San Francisco where the jumbling of cultures was practically its motto. It would just be a little cultural influence from the Gems because of them simply settling there, that’s all. Never mind the teams of Gems rummaging through citizens caught in the crossfire of ten or so bullets, looking to see if they had wallets with addresses, anything that could give them clues of where to drop their bodies off at.  
And surprisingly, it was working. Even now, Connie couldn’t recollect beyond a dozen or so conversations about the war other than they were glad not to live in the West and that a part of them actually rooted for the Gems. Now, this part of them was grown or shrunken depending on what their stance was on Gems to begin with. But with all their hard work, in about nine months or so, it died down to a topic that the younger population joked about and the older population defended with her and Steven’s rhetoric if any of their friends approached them, panicking about the state of the country.  
She was too tired.  
And as she fell asleep on the bed, alone, she could’ve sworn she felt the tuft on Steven’s head as it was when he was a child.  
Before any of this reassurance had to be done.  
Before Trump’s declaration.  
Before their life turned inside out as they knew it, before thousands of both species died, before every fear that the couple had amplified through their house’s walls, through the seawalls, through the wall the atmosphere formed on the planet.  
___  
As Connie slept, Greg ate what he could without vomiting and headed towards the car wash.  
He was surprised, just as much as everyone else was relieved, that he was still alive. His prostate had already been removed, leading to him joking about how he didn’t have prostate cancer anymore, hallelujah, but the cancer had still spread to his bones and lymph nodes. Thank God the cancer in his lymph nodes was kept at bay, but the cancer had latched onto his bones. And from then on, everything he did was a red-hot coal.  
He didn’t know he could feel cancer, so intimately, through each one of his bones. He could feel it crawling, moving, shifting, and when it throbbed, it hurt, yes, but he was thankful that it stayed that way instead of crawling all over him. He didn’t know he could compare cancer to an insect, a large one, somehow crawling and jumping on him at the same time.  
That wasn’t to say it didn’t hurt. It did. It hurt badly, and the past year had been his own battle trying to reconcile his need for his food to stay down and his need to keep his pain under a certain level. Which is why he tapped into the funds Marty got him and bought him some hands at the carwash. He didn’t want to stop it- there was only one other carwash in the beach town, and for tourists, that meant a half hour of unrelenting traffic during the summer months- but he had three people, three young people, hadn’t even graduated from high school yet, helping him out. And what came was something he thought he didn’t need before, but when he even dipped his toes into it, he didn’t want to ever go back- companionship. Chelsea, Lori, Edward. Those were their names. He kept a sheet written to remind himself later of the time they’d spent together when no one else was willing to. “Chelsea- wants to transition when she graduates. I call her Charlie when I remember and “him” when I forget to call her Charlie. Lori- Keeps to herself, but still manages to come to every place I invite her. Edward- Doesn’t keep to himself, but still seems to be the one to invite me.”  
What hurt perhaps more was the hair. It hadn’t grown back since Aquamarine had cut it, but he’d made an extensive plan on how he’d grow it out. But then came him having to go to the bathroom more than often, and then came the pain, and hen came the diagnosis… Steven had offered to grow out his hair; Greg had responded with a sort of “you don’t have to, but I’m not saying to cut your hair, either.”  
But what hurt most was Pearl. Ever since the diagnosis, she had been reading up on it constantly and had refused to leave her room. And when she did read up on it, and when Greg had put the cherry on top by confiding to her that the cancer may spread to his lymph nodes if he wasn’t careful, she would’ve stayed in her room even more if Greg hadn’t coaxed her out and had her meet the three “gremlins breaking his cars up”. Still, he missed the way she’d looked before all this. Before the war, even. Before Spinel.  
Him and Pearl did get married, though.  
____  
Even Pearl was a little shocked at it; she was put in charge of cleaning up from all the wedding decorations, and here she was, a week later, still cleaning.  
She didn’t know what to think now that they were going to be joined for the rest of their lives in a fusion of sorts, other than the fact that she wanted it, the both of them wanted it. She didn’t know anything six months after the war started was that I love you with a flowering love, and you love me with a burning love, and if we’re about to die, let’s throw the flower in the fireplace. Still, they didn’t die. And if any regrets arose, they didn’t show it.  
Hel, they weren’t officially a couple until a few months after the war began. Everyone saw the little intricacies of their actions and, based off of their assumptions, told everyone that it was relevant to that they were dating. And so they settled into that status, and were both shocked to find it completely natural. And Pearl would ask herself in those months, why, why was this happening to her and the man who’d essentially killed her lover? Not that she wouldn’t have discussions with him about it- it was one of their hobbies, practically, for a month or so discussing it for an hour before they went to bed together. Before they went to bed together.  
Six months after the war began- she still didn’t know whether or not Garnet had advised him to since her and Greg were friends anyway- she took him to the beach and popped out a gem in front of him. At first, she was threatened, memories of the past war flooding her. But she had the time and the restraint not to get out her staff, to say “yes”, to acknowledge what she had been wanting all this time, needing all this time, and to let herself go as Greg staggered his pain-filled way to her and dipped her the way he did Rose when she was younger.  
She still couldn’t believe that she’d let herself go.  
___  
“Alright, Amethyst. Make sure you keep your rear sight up to your shoulder, not down under it.”  
“Okay, okay! I know! Just let me do this-”  
With that one pointer, she took the target in front of her and hit it directly in the center of its head target from thirty feet away. Three times, and the kickback from Vidalia’s rifle was only enough to make her flinch. Vidalia and Bismuth still couldn’t keep their eyes off the target. Bismuth almost couldn’t understand Amethyst’s drive considering she devoted so much of her time to being a partier; Vidalia knew her drive better than anyone.  
Still, Bismuth managed a “nice shot” before walking away, pondering why Amethyst’s deployment was still a month away and why she hadn’t opted to deploy now.  
The reason why, in a sentence, was that Amethyst believed she wasn’t good enough. Sure, she’d miss Steven, Connie, Greg, and the rest of them, but it would only take either party about a week to get over. But she believed she wasn’t good enough, at least for the military. Especially with Jasper taking the reins. Why would anyone, Amethyst thought, wanna go back to the place their high school bully works and apply for a job working under them? Pffft! And they make jokes, too, when they’re bullied by them, about how when they graduate, their bully will work for them. Not the other way around.  
But as with most things, it was a lot more than that. Amethyst knew it was a lot more than that. It was the dichotomy she would face of knowing she would have the same internal dialogue as her own general, yet the both of them having different enough mindsets to despise each other. It was the pressure of knowing that one hit to her chest, just one hit, and she would be shattered, gone from the world, unable to experience any of it or contribute any of herself to it. And boys, Amethyst thought, stifling the urge to elicit a joking moan. The vast majority of human soldiers were men. And she was into anyone, anytime, but military guys, now they were hot stuff if there ever was one…  
Yeah, right. Soon as I start being a lesbian like half of the other godam Gems, I’ll join, she thought, taking the rifle in her hand again and yelling out for Vidalia to bring out the next target.  
Bismuth herself was by no means a homophobe- she’d had a fling with Pearl about a year ago that was quickly ended by Greg’s affections. Still, she found herself uncomfortable as she stood on the other side of the wall, waiting for Ruby and Sapphire to finish their moments of passion that preceded their fusions. Whether or not that discomfort was taped to her crushed hopes of spending a life, or at least more than a few weeks, with Pearl, she had no idea. But maybe, she thought, just maybe, that was why she was being an uncharacteristic glutton for punishment. She was undeniably taking on too much work upon herself, not only that, but she also refused the few help that was offered her. Up until now.  
Garnet stepped out towards her.  
“Hey.” She placed a gauntlet on Bismuth’s shoulder; time passed too quickly back to the war, and back again, and she resisted the urge to shove the gauntlet off.  
“Bismuth, I’m insisting on being here today, no matter how much you tell me to leave. Next time, call me earlier, alright? I don’t want to see you getting hurt again.”  
Bismuth grimaced a little and looked at the scar on her arm made by a bullet, crystallic material still scrambling to fill it. Even just thinking of it made it hurt...the both of them nodded, said a brief goodbye Amethyst and Vidalia, and made their way outside of the town gates.  
It was a zoo. Nobody could quite decide whether Beach City’s economy was in shambles or skyrocketing to new heights no one had ever dreamed of. On one aspect, no one seemed to want to stay for more than a few weeks, causing companies that managed gated communities that had once belonged to upper middle-class tourists from the tri-state area to completely have to either rezone or file for bankruptcy altogether. However, on another note, the total beach population had boomed from 250,000 a week to 400,000 a week. The idea was that people from all around the country, most notably California, New York, or anywhere else with a high concentration of colleges that championed activism among vacationing youth, would come there, make plans to stay there for a week because it was a beach town and why not, and just make the protesting- the rioting- the death threats- the shooting and stabbing and battery- a part of their travel itinerary.  
Firearms as a part of one’s travel itinerary. Even Garnet had to chuckle at that, before realizing any more of her chuckling and she’d drive herself mad, the acceptance that the country was at war fully dawning upon her. She hadn’t even let that happen to her back in the first Gem War, Zhayna do Kodoros.  
They weren’t the only ones defending the Gem sect, albeit they were the only ones defending against twelve or so people each. They’d made a small militia around the town, although nowhere near as sophisticated as the National Guard. They had 335,000; they only had a measly 17 or so. Which calculated to about 200 protestors and theory and closer to 300 in practice on good days and close to 400 on bad days. The bad days, they made half-baked orders for everyone to evacuate. Most Gems had made plans for a second home at this point, or at least someone to stay with in another state. Some had considered moving there. Some of them already had.  
All they had, Bismuth had to remind herself over and over, was today.  
They did consider fusion; it was one of Bismuth's favorite tactics during the Zhayna do Kodoros. With her direct physical strength combined with a Gem who had a special ability, they were practically berserkers on the battlefield. It was one of the many factors in them winning the war. But with Garnet, it was a different story. As she had to remind Bismuth multiple times, fusion was their highest tenet, and they were uncomfortable fusing with anyone unless they were very, very familiar to them. Besides, they needed to be split up over a wider area.  
Surprisingly, violence was the last resort. Most of their guard work was either reasoning with the troops of humans who had came charging at them with their evidence-voided words, putting their hands out in a "stop" gesture (which surprisingly worked at times), or on occasion strategically shoving humans away- if they knocked any of them to the ground, who knows what sort of outrage could happen.  
It was also surprising, Bismuth thought, how exhausting it was, and how quick it was to be so. If she were asked, she could carry on repairing buildings and upgrading the fortifications around the sect nineteen, twenty hours. After an hour of holding them back, she found herself just as tired. She found herself making more than a few self-deprecating remarks when asking Garnet if she could take a short break inside the fortifications.  
And she also needed the distance to keep Garnet from seeing the tear slipping down her face.  
___  
But for at least the humans, life still went on.  
Gene was eighteen now, and was still on his scholarship for the NASA subsidiary academy in DC, but the distance learning programs established a few years back made it to where he could stay in Beach City with his brother and his wonderful stepmom. "Karen" everyone called her. Or at least "someone whose parents treated her a little too well for this world". There was that, and then there was his routine.  
Waking up in the morning, driving OJ to the elementary school, etc. Hiding away in his room doing his schoolwork, building a hydrogen model working on his model of the Challenger when he got a break. Or text his girlfriend of four months, Shannon Howard, and try to maintain their practically crumbling relationship. She was like Amethyst- sleeping with all these different boys, yet saying she loved Gene the most. "But do you?" Gene would say. "If you sleep with all these people, do you really?"  
After all of that mess, there was one part of the day he looked forward to and dreaded at the same time. Each day, at OJ's beck and call, they went to Steven's childhood home. Gene couldn’t imagine why OJ could possibly want to go there, especially with reminders of Spinel still occasionally hung around the house out of necessity- the wall that she and she only would touch on her way up to her room, the area of the countertop she dangled off of, the colors of the walls that she’d learn about her first week on Earth. And OJ didn’t give Gene a reason, at least not yet. Gene had a theory that it was to comfort Pearl; the more people that were in her life, the more it seemed that she was willing to come out of her shell, or, on her worst days, out of her room. Still, Greg and Garnet made good conversation, and Amethyst still entertained OJ, although half the time she attempted to show him how to fire a standard Savage Axis XP Bolt hunting rifle.  
It was- eerie, how much everything had changed, Gene thought. Uncomfortable. It made him feel yucky inside to see how much Garnet had to now dedicate her time to guarding the sect, how high the fortifications were, how much the Gems around him seemed to flinch as he walked through town despite him being just about as threatening as a hubcap lying down on the side of the road.  
But friendships had to be maintained. The presidential broadcasts had to be ignored for some part. There still were days where he had to help Greg at the car wash and get to know those his age who worked there. There were still days where he talked with the Gems on what it was like living on a Native American reservation, how he sometimes felt like he was just about as cast to the side of the road as that hubcap.  
Life had to go on.  
____  
And no one else on the street seemed to hear Aquamarine as she wailed, without warning, without provocation, without any reason or any signs of stopping, as Eyeball turned her back on her and walked to the warp pad to find her way to the deployment area.


	34. Season Eight, Chapter Two: Krev Kaniony

"Krev Kaniony" translates from Gem into "blood from the canyons". Its relevance is highly debated depending on which side is interviewed that fought in Zhayna do Kodoros, with the Homeworld Gems defining it as their sense of pride and the Crystal Gems defining it as a phrase they would like eliminated from the language altogether.  
Of course, it doesn't matter in regards to the second war now.

The little white flowers blossomed on the coastal trees, the tourists started packing in whether to visit or whether to protest, and it was May.  
Aquamarine had moved west about a month ago, but Jasper’s frustration there was something that could be contained as well as gas could in a test tube with a thumb. The front had held there for three months, with neither side progressing, with none of the state’s gem deposits exploited or protected by either side. She didn’t know whether to relocate and look for gem deposits elsewhere- that would mean enlisting the help of other countries; the last thing she wanted was the conflict spiraling out of her control- or whether to mount a desperate coup d’etat, which was more blunderous and laughable than enlisting other countries’ help. Worst of all was the discord in her ranks- while her allies begged her to protest against the rest of the army and have them search for deposits themselves, the amount who she did consider her “allies”, while relatively high in rank, was much smaller than the total composition of the Gem army. It didn’t matter how powerful they got even with fusion; it was a matter of numbers, and that was that. So she decided to hold the front for another month while she gathered together any gem deposits her spies could conjure up, although she didn’t take her eyes off the east by any means.  
Back east, Steven had decided not to go back west as long as he wasn’t immediately needed, even if the implant Peridot had put in him to keep his powers under control warded off most diseases and injuries. But the more that the communication lines grew quiet, the more eerie it’d gotten. He thought of it as a sign that the Gems were in a state of catastrophe, even if his country was already so. Most of his days now were spent convincing the country’s allies to remain this way and to indirectly carry out operations out of either general’s eye that would be disastrous to either base. He himself didn’t know what to do- giving in to either side would save thousands of lives on both, but if he were to do that, what would the other side think of him? But each of the narratives from either side from the atrocities that the other did, or the general horror of war, would at times grip Steven hard enough to make him vomit. And on top of all this, there was Connie….  
He didn’t know relationships were so demanding- no, that was a lie. The truth was he’d known that relationships were demanding since he’d been taught the lessons by the three Gems raising him about them, but he didn’t anticipate or plan for it. It seemed the more and more consuming his occupation was, the more and more time was spent telling Connie he didn’t want her help, didn’t need her help, even if she was practically taking on half of his duties by now.  
Sundays were wonderful for him. Sundays were the dew of God, or the goddesses, or whatever culture he was raised in and felt like extrapolating that day. Sundays, he could blow off a portion of his work, sleep in, visit friends and family, and, on weeks when he was less burnt out, go to the amusement park the way he did when he was a child. It was the fourteenth in the helish year of 2023 when he’d gone there and his father had tapped him on the shoulder. Before Steven could even have the chance to ask if he was doing alright through his rounds of chemo, Greg gestured him to go to the outskirts of the boardwalk the way only fathers could so that there was no way for Steven to get a word in edgewise.  
“Dad! How’ve you been? How’s your-”  
“Sorry, Schtuball, not now,,” his father said after a quick hug, eyes downcast and left hand scrambling to undo the sleeve on his right.  
It was awful- purple and swollen, a thin sheen of what at least looked like sweat covering it and pus oozing out of it in some places. By the look on his dad’s face, it was just about as painful as it looked, and for a minute, for one beautiful minute, he was no longer a political tool, but simply a son who was concerned for his father and wanted to do everything to help. Understandably, he wanted to stay there- and stay there he did, looking at that arm, half-comprehending what his father was saying and nodding, until Greg had to explicitly ask Steven to pay attention and Steven made sure to be suddenly hyper aware of what he was saying.  
“Should we...Dad, have you tried going to the doctor? I believe Mrs. Maheshwaran is still working at the emergency room if you…”  
“No, I...I remember this. Don’t you?”  
He did. Three years ago back in 2019, Spinel’s poison had landed on that same arm- it just barely didn’t hurt Steven to think about anything having to do with her.  
“Oh-h-h, I see.” A pause. “Good news, though- it doesn’t look like it was incapacitated like it was this time. Although it must be painful,” he said, saying that last sentence quickly to avoid the look of further hurt forming on his father’s face. “Do you remember where you were when it happened?”  
Ten minutes later, he’d left Connie behind at the amusement park to go to his childhood backyard; he’d thought of shooting her a quick text, but decided his father needed his help more. Everyone needed his help now- his family, local delegates, entire countries, but it was something he’d accepted even before Spinel ended up dead.  
She never would, though, thought Steven as his father directed him to the place next to the phlox he’d attempted to plant, and the small pool in the ground that had collected filled with the same pink fluid Steven had spent around a week in 2019 trying to extract from the planet’s mantle. Dam, as if I didn’t have anything else to do.  
Still, Steven took a mouthful of spittle on his hand and pressed it on the spot in the ground, and the ground immediately cleared. He sighed, found that his head was in his hands without any particular reason why, saying to his father that it was nothing more than a headache when he was asked what was wrong.  
“Still.” Greg put his hand on his son’s shoulder.  
Steven knew, immediately, that there was no backing out of it. That he was speaking to the Steven hiding underneath all this maturity and all this political imbroglio, underneath the facade he’d learned to create once he was twelve or so. The Steven that hadn’t been talked to in a long, long time. The Steven only a father, or very occasionally Garnet, could break through to. Try as Pearl might, her mothering was too enveloped in procedures for her to break through to him more than every once in a while.  
“You can talk, alright? This...all of this, I don’t think I could do it. I’m just managing...me and my car wash and my garden, and sometimes I already think I’m about to explode. I don’t think any of us could imagine being in your position if they tried, okay? So you talk to us whenever you’re ready. You talk to us. You talk to Connie, especially.”  
Connie. As he was walking back to the amusement park, he struggled with which route to take that would appease Connie the most- a situation that those he knew above fifty would be laughing at, would relate with him about their own wives. But he was twenty, and he was strung-out, and he was older than that.  
He looked around where he left Connie, around the four or five rides in the immediate vicinity. Nothing. None of even his friends there, human or Gem, knew where she’d went- one only said a worrying sentence or two about how Connie “looked mad” and that “she’d walked away pretty quick”. He tried shooting a few calls to her now- texts wouldn’t suffice- with both of them redirecting to her voicemail. He panicked at this point, looking at the outskirts of the part, resisting the urge to ask Mr. Smiley if he’d seen his wife the same way he’d ask about a friend or one of his parents.  
Finally, he’d had to abandon the amusement park, thoughts attacking him as he slammed his car into gear. There was traffic to be sure considering it was May, but he secretly relished the stops both to give him an opportunity to look around for Connie and to give him a time cushion from now until the time he’d have to go home and face the music.  
She was rocking back and forth on the front porch, all the potential fury drained from her face.  
“Steven” was all she said.  
She made it nothing less than lucid, first of all, that she wasn’t at all angry about her leaving him behind at the amusement park- she’d taken a quick glance at his father and understood that one most likely needed the other. But it was all she could do at the moment, to make that entire exchange based on that. It comforted her. Not many things comforted her now.  
Not many people comforted her now.  
“You can’t...you can’t just abandon everyone else around you for the sake of- for the sake of both ra...” She trailed off. She sounded pathetic, she knew. Yet she had nothing else she could think of saying.  
“Abandon? You think I’ve tried to abandon people? I’ve been here as much as I could, you’ve seen me put my schedule together! You know I’m trying, Connie, you can’t put it all on my shoulders-”  
“I know, Steven, I know.” By now, she was making eye contact with him. “And I’m not, I’m not trying to! It’s just that….it’s not an ideal situation, that’s all. But that doesn’t mean I feel any more valued, or that anyone else does.” There. Leverage. When emotions were all that was left, there leverage could easily be found.  
“Well...I’ve learned over these months that it may be so, but there’s bigger things to worry about now! Do you know what it’s like to live out West? Do you know how many people have died due to my inaction? Due to my action?”  
Bigger things to worry about than me? Connie couldn’t help but think.  
“Pearl, you’ve- she has Greg, but he’s running the car wash, and the...the person who was essentially her daughter died months ago. Your sister, Steven.”  
“No. No, you can’t put that on me. You can’t put any of this on me. Don’t accuse me of forgetting my sister, I hate it when you accuse me of stuff I’m obviously not at fault with. I hate it when you do that.”  
“I’m sorry, but if that’s going to make you-”  
“Why is it that you- why can’t you be more patient with me when I’m trying to run something that’s- that’s killed so, so many people?!”  
“I’m sorry! I’ve been helping you this whole time, can’t you see?!-”  
“And I know she was my sister, I know she was, that’s one of the reasons why we’ve started this dam war!” Steven exclaimed.  
Connie half-screamed. He didn’t know what he’d done, why Connie’d screamed, what he was thinking of doing, or even the way Connie was looking at him until his fist had already been driven into the side of the house. The stinging was all he felt; the dent in the wall was all he saw. The world grew into numbness and dissociation. Which made it ever more precarious considering the fact that talking to Connie was one of his main prospective actions.  
All of this, and he was still a pawn in his own war.  
His mother had created one for that purpose.  
And neither Steven nor his mother had learned anything from her.  
Nothing from Connie except a look of utter horror. Steven had dissociated so much that there was nothing in his memory that he could compare it to, only a theoretical concept of a ghost from the first war coming out of th woods, whether human or Gem, acting as if it were Steven who had killed them. Steven didn’t have the wherewithal to look at his fist and realize that a few splinters had embedded their way into his skin until a minute had passed by, the patterns of rhododendrons still gleaming on Connie’s turtleneck in the wind, the joyous sounds from the amusement park still trudging their way through that same wind. It was cold now; even if it was May, it wasn’t quite summer, and with the ocean behind them serving as their great mediator, the temperature was still hovering around what Connie would consider chilly, and would continue to be so until June, until more tourists became pouring in, until they started another riot and he would have to go out and leave Connie behind again and convince them, with bared teeth, to leave the sect and to mind whatever the hel their business was-  
He’d failed her.  
Two oblong tears dripped down her cheeks.  
“Steven, you- you’re scaring me…”  
He’d failed her.  
What were the vows Steven had told her during the wedding? Never mind that- what were the principles, implicit as they were, that Steven had subconsciously vowed when Connie first planted him that kiss on his cheek in that far-fetched world of him being sixteen? That he’d treat her with not only the dignity that a woman deserved, but the dignity her being deserved? That he’d communicate with her at the earliest indication of something or another that threatened either of their well-being? That he’d never leave her, no matter what the world came to?  
His first thought wasn’t to question his principles. His first thought wasn’t to question the relationship he and Connie had plummeted themselves into. Hel, his first thought wasn’t even to comfort his wife, to take her in his arms and reassure her that whatever was the source of his aggression, he’d shoot it in the temple and shoot it fast, that she meant more to him than the world to her, more than the planets covering the distance between Earth and Homeworld and back, that there was never quite going to be any way that he could make reparations with her.  
But he did latch on to that last thought. He was never going to make any reparations with her, and that was that.  
His first thought was to go to Lapis.  
____  
Steven emptied out every way he had hurt his wife.  
A grave look came upon Lapis’ face. It was a dooming one, for all Steven thought. Her eyes stabbed Steven. Settled on the albatross that was walking behind him before it flew up, its huge, swooping wings spanning at least eleven feet. It always looked so distant from the beachgoers’ view…  
Her hands were in an almost praying position on her lap; she may as well have been in her own little world, reciting Latin and dooming him to anathema in regards to her life.  
“And you’re completely sure that you did all this?”  
Steven nodded. Tears were now pouring down his face now at double the rate that they did Connie’s.  
The grave look ame for a few more seconds. She fiddled with her halter top, as if there were something defective about it. Then she continued stabbing through Steven, although the longer she took to recline in her own thoughts, the more the gaze sank into Steven instead of through him. And that was worse than anything. So, completely devoid of any other tactic, Steven asked her if she was alright.  
“Yeah….yeah, I’m alright.”  
She uncoiled her legs; while she and Steven were at the same height now, Steven didn’t dare to stand.  
“I’m more than alright.”  
She tilted her head towards the sky. Watching her own albatrosses now, watching the own waves in her mind toss to and fro in every which way, preparing herself for what she was sure she would regret for at least the next year or so. But she wouldn’t stoop down to such a low level as to apologize for it. What would apologizing mean, that at some point she wasn’t normally in the right? It was what she strived for every minute of her existence! If she wasn’t morally in the right, then she hadn’t obtained perfection-  
On to what she came to do.  
“Come with me, Steven.”  
They both had to wait until the tourists thinned out, until it approached sunset and beyond. The both of them knew that the tourists were then replaced by whatever teenagers in the area decided to either sneak out of their parents’ hotels or beach houses or congregate in their own groups and make whatever revelry they could on the beachfront. So while it was rudimentary for her, Lapis made the water levels in about a thirty-foot vicinity from the pier appear as if it were too high and choppy to swim in. Before long, her and Steven had a radius more than three times that to work with.  
They could still hear their laughter, and their blaring music, when they engaged in the setup.  
“Steven, I don’t want to do this type of...this thing to you. Last time I did it, I actually felt bad for her. And you know how hard that is.:  
“I do.” A hand on Lapis’ shoulder; it was a slow but eventual progression from when he’d first met her in 2016. “Please. Please do it.”  
Lapis shook the concept back and forth in her head a little, then nodded. Closed her eyes. Let the warm night wind settle on her and her halter top, on her hair that blew back and forth like one of the swaying trees in the town’s outskirts. Let it shut out not only the noise, but the perception of what must be happening to the Gem sect; they’d chosen a pier that was directly in the tourism area, far away from whichever residential areas were meant for those staying permanently in town.  
“Look,” Lapis whispered, a whisper Steven said was “like a fairy’s, or a dark fairy’s, but not quite that dark” when he was younger. “Look for beach police!”  
He knew whatever report would decide his fate. And so, despite him seeing someone in a t-shirt with a Beach City logo on it that may or may not have been some sort of lifeguard, he told Lapis there was nobody he could see.  
Lapis said nothing. Didn’t even nod.  
The setup was something out of a medieval book. That was the first thought that Steven had when the water was lowered, when his limbs went immobile, stuck- almost contorted- to the pier’s wood. They were chains- he didn’t face them, did everything he could not to face them or to acknowledge the fact that there was cold metal sleeping on top of his wrists and, if the weight was any indication, his ankles. He faced the Atlantic with the moon almost directly in his eye, hanging over him somewhat. His heart wasn’t pounding; it was ready. Ready for what his consequences were for hurting the one in his life that he should’ve built a life with. That he should’ve built his mind and his soul with, and should’ve built hers in return.  
He was ready.  
Lapis didn’t ask if he was ready before she shoved her hand back and the first wave slammed into him.  
At first, he didn’t acknowledge the fact that the oxygen was ripped from him, him being raised in this town and having spent weekends swimming for at least an hour ever since he was physically able to. The only thing he could acknowledge was that his head was slammed back into the pier, and that he could’ve sworn he saw a tendril of red floating up to the top of the wave and popping like a small balloon. The ocean was dirty. Dirty as his soul. And he had to stay here until both of them were clean.  
The first wave retracted, and there was no gasp, no sense of distress, on his part. He looked up; Lapis didn’t show any signs of him having impressed her on her part, and had her legs shoulder width apart, her right hand forward and exacting little, if no effort to keep the chains on him, her left hand resting on her right arm and, dare she say it, relaxed.  
The second wave.  
He didn’t have the wherewithal to take a breath before it hit; there was a little distress, but not much. But he didn’t make a sound. Not for the third one. Not for the fourth one. Not for the fifth one.  
A few minutes passed by before his lungs started crying out to him, the salinity in the water stinging his eyes and the corners of his lips, making him wish Lapis had given him the opportunity to drink fresh water before she started manipulating the Atlantic. The water was still dirty.  
Lapis still felt...unfinished. She knew, more than anything, that Steven was in distress, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t relish the fact that he was beginning to squirm under his restraints despite this whole event being voluntary. And so she tipped back her head to the sky, begged it to tell her what to say, what she could possibly say, to keep her frustration at bay.  
“Scream, ‘I did this to her!’”.  
At first, Steven said nothing; Lapis, a pang of abject horror springing through all the way down her body, she looked down and noticed that Steven was still squirming, only either fatigued or rebellious. Lapis tipped her head back again for a moment before plummeting it back down, hearing her back pop somewhere around where her gem was. “Scream, ‘I did this to her!’”.  
“I did this to her!” The fifteenth wave; if anyone was counting, he was.  
His throat was crying out for air, yet he had to remind himself that at the end of each wave, there would be a blissful set of air before the next one came in. He could feel a new weight around his chest, although that could have been the water- was he drowning already? He was disappointed in himself, more than anything. The sixteenth wave came in. The water was still dirty. Connie was still crying. And, God willing, she would have no idea where Steven was, and, Lapis willing, not have the faintest clue on how to get one.  
Lapis didn’t know where the time was. She didn’t know where the teenagers were, or how close any lifeguards were even if she had the clearest vantage point she could possibly have in the whole town on where they were. All she knew was that the waves were coming, and coming, and coming, and unless Steven came up to her and told her that he was on the verge of dying, she wouldn’t stop, she wouldn’t have any idea how to stop.  
“I did this to her-”  
He didn’t know whether it was the thirtieth or the sixtieth. He only knew the amount of salt that poured down his throat, some of it being forced into his stomach as one of the only survival mechanisms he had. And he knew profoundly, so profoundly, the voice muffled by the water, the water pouring its way down his throat and lighting it on fire just as much fire as one of the humans’ houses that was accidentally burned on Lark Lane during one of the human-induced protests. It was then that he gasped, and the coughing- he couldn’t stop coughing. It was like him swallowing hot chocolate when he was a child and the coughing resulting from it meriting the attention from everyone raising him….  
He was burning. His entire body writhing, alight...and his throat cleared three waves and forty seconds later.  
“I did this to her!”  
It was little more than a whisper now before more and more handfuls of water punched its way down his throat, endlessly. He forgot which way was up; at times, he fell on his head on the sand, and the chains twisted his limbs as much as it willed before the part of the chain that was crossing his chest reappeared, forcing him to stand up. Was Lapis- Connie- Connie was still crying- I did this to her, I did this to her, I did this to her is what he willed his throat to scream out, over and over again, scream its way past the water as the chains pinched into him. The pinching, he thought- that was one of the worst parts, even worse than the water. He felt entire chunks of flesh get caught in the middle of them, could practically feel the color purple swelling on them. It was the last thing he settled himself into before-  
The sun came prancing over the ocean. The sailors were already noting it as the nautical twilight time, already hauling in the first catch before the protestors came in, and they had to shut off their fisheries for about an hour to wait for the processions to finish their ways across Coastal Highway and Atlantic Avenue to progress to the gem sect. Lapis noted the time- could humans survive for this long?- and ignored the plunge that her inevitable compassion sank into her before she dropped to her knees, made a primal cry or two, vomited a little on the top of the pier, and wiped it off before crawling her way to the edge of the pier.  
“Steven?”  
Her lip was taut and half-smiling, but the tears pouring down her cheeks betrayed her. The wind had blown hre hair into a mess that Peridot wouldn’t hesitate to fix, her dress impacted with a few splinters from the platform.  
Steven’s head was bowed towards the pier, as if in prayer, the way his father was in the hours before his parents called him to service. His body was bloated and purple-  
Lapis mustered the energy to drag herself to the edge of the pier before vomiting whatever was left in her. Every memory of every microtrauma she had sustained for the past four years suddenly rebounded and seemed more threatening to her than even the mirror did for those thousands of years she’d remained trapped inside. She began screaming, screaming more than the beachgoers aroud her could handle and with a force that would mae Peridot scream herself before shooting a tranq dart at Lapis. She began holding her sides and clawing into them until she drew up crystallic agglutinates that showed signs of healing, as Steven’s bloodstream filled with salt and his body dwindled into unconsciousness below. And there were only a few thoughts that resignated in him.  
All of this, and he was still a pawn in his own war.  
His mother had created one for that purpose, and had learned nothing from her.  
But Steven had learned everything.  
With that, his brain stopped receiving the oxygen that it needed, and his body finished sagging down to the sand.


	35. Season Eight, Chapter Three

From that moment on, Lapis didn’t exist.   
She didn’t know that she’d almost passed out twice on the way to retrieve Steven’s own unconscious body, or that a hurricane, entirely common considering it was May and entirely independent of her causing it, was making its own burgeoning way towards Beach City. She didn’t know that a lifeguard had ran up to her and Steven, not because they noticed Steven, but because he saw a gorgeous girl collapse twice on the sand.   
Most importantly, she didn’t know that Steven was breathing.   
As soon as she unraveled the chains off of the body that’d gone through more than what fifteen adults went through in their entire lifetime, she realized there was tears hanging off of his face, noticed the bloating that had now spread from organ to organ, and, every single one of her muscles clenched and churning, she put an ear to Steven’s mouth, her own lip trembling, and heard nothing but gurgling, decided that this may as well be the equivalent of him not breathing at all- her body froze. She could feel her entire self tightening, not knowing what to do…  
She almost didn’t hear the voice of the some-high-school-grade lifeguard behind her. “Hey, girl, you alright? I saw you almost faint, did you-”  
As soon as he saw the body in Lapis’ hands, however, all lust crumbled away with the force of the coming hurricane even he dismissed due to the emergency directly in front of him, and he pulled Steven away from the pier and up towards where any child would consider it satisfactory to build a sandcastle even in how high this tide was. Assuming it was the cause was some degree of drowning due to Steven’s head having hung almost directly over it before Lapis began unraveling his chains, the lifeguard tilted Steven’s head back and found the same gurgle Lapis did. He then began CPR, only announcing in the middle of his fatigue to the distraught woman that his name was Mark, and that he would be helping Steven. Lapis barely had the strength to nod and gulp back her own bile.   
Within five minutes, five other lifeguards were on their way, unzipping parts to a defibrillator and a CPR machine.   
Nobody asked why, was all Lapis thought, as she took a glance of Steven’s body flopping up and down in rhythm to what was now a CPR machine; she felt what she thought was blood shoot through her veins and making every muscle in her body twitch. Her vision narrowed, but by now she was lying supine on the sand, feeling the slight pain she felt as the sand penetrated every area of the front half of her body. Nobody asked why.   
The tears came. Before long, the twitching had been extended to a slight, slow writhing, her arms and feet extending as if trying to find some sense of relief before dragging itself back in farther than it was before she began moving outwards.   
It took twelve minutes-the time it normally took Steven to fall asleep- before he came to. His chest hurt. He was thirsty, so thirsty. Why was there water flowing into his arm instead of his mouth-something must have happened, that’s an IV. An IV? He’d only seen this in the hospital. The hospital... oh, no...something else is happening, too...  
The first thing he could think of was to warn the lifeguards of the oncoming hurricane indicated by the weather forecast that morning, but it came out as some garbled vowels, muffled by an oxygen mask. It was when three of the five lifeguards, along with two or three paramedics, that he realized the situation he was in. Not the situation Lapis had put him in- the situation he was in. He’d asked, and she’d given her consent. Whatever consequences would come to him with this and this alone.   
He didn’t realize that he’d almost stopped breathing.  
He also didn’t realize that Lapis had used her powers to draw the water out of his body, a feat that took almost all of the twelve minutes to convince the paramedics, in all this chaos, that it was beneficial. Lastly- and perhaps this stung the most to him at the moment- didn’t realize that his phone had completely shorted out due to water damage, immune to any attempts of contact.   
When he woke up next, he was in the hospital. It was a half an hour away, far enough from the coast to not have the hurricane reach it as of yet. But it was still coming…  
A tube was inserted in his chest, and he no longer felt thirsty-he glanced to his arm, and a new IV was still there. Despite Connie sitting to his right, he sat up and asked where Lapis was, although he knew to calm down after Connie put a hand over his chest and said some soothing nothings. He looked further to his right and realized that there were at least four cameramen there, two from local papers, one from Baltimore, and one from a national newspaper, readying their cameras. Accompanying them were four news anchors. A few nurses had noticed that this by all means broke hospital regulations, especially with the coronavirus regulations established in 2020, but noticed their logos and shut right up. The one doctor they passed did the same after she was given a few hundred dollars from the national one.   
Despite the pain still wracking his chest- and the whole chunks of flesh that were still an angry pinched purple-, he knew the script to go by now. As soon as he saw the cameraman, the default responses popped up from his subconscious. Yes, he was alright. No, nobody purposefully did this- except for maybe a group of humans that had finished with their revelry and protests that night and decided they needed to retaliate again before the night was over. Who were they? He didn’t know their names; how could he? He just knew the clothing brands they were wearing, which just happened to be a handful of few major brands from Tanger Outlets on the other side of town. And he made sure to hide the chain marks. When asked, he said his wrists hurt, and he didn’t want to gross out the audience with the marks on them. There- a little humor to sprinkle it all with. And it wasn’t a lie, right? They were just as purple as any of the areas where the chains were.   
No, this didn’t affect his relationship with Connie.   
Once the news reporters were satisfied with what Steven and Connie had to offer, it was his family’s job to burst through his room next. Garnet, Amethyst in a videocall from the base out west, Garnet asking the medical professionals over and over what exactly happened to Steven and if Steven was going to be alright, Amethyst, as best as she could, crushing Steven in a flurry of hugs and tears. Sadie and Shep thought to visit- Shep served as a lifeguard on occasion a few years back- His dad. And Pearl, who was now the closest thing Steven had to a mother now that she was married to Greg, which still gave Steven an uncomfortable sense of cognitive dissonance whenever he so much as looked at her.   
He could’ve sworn he felt Spinel somewhere in that family flurry.   
Not one of them gave any information on Lapis other than a few platitudes about her being safe and sound. He was interrogated by them again for what seemed like hours, most about how this happened to him- and who. All of them had practically moved past retaliation at whoever had hurt him due to an overwhelming inability to target them without months of investigation- and by then, five more things would have happened to him. But overall, his narrative was the partying teenagers were the ones that had hurt him. Yes, those were chain marks on his wrists and chest- one of the teenagers had a pickup truck, thought it was the funniest idea to strap the snow chain around him, and the rest was history.   
That was until the lights went out in his room.   
“What the fuck happened?!” muttered Amethyst, being met with the disapproving looks of Pearl and Garnet.   
“Hurricane,” Steven half-muttered back, coughing despite Lapis’ and the hospital’s work and clutching his chest. There was no sarcasm in his voice. “Happens every year, remember? Nothing to worry about.”   
“God, I must’ve been out here for awhile, Steve-o.”  
She was right. Her breaks from deployment were few and far between now that her sister was dealing with frustration from the stalemate until her ungodly long hair was covered in it. But both Amethyst and the poison had enough influence on her to goad her into winning, and the Gem forces had already gained two miles- a landmark compared to where both sides had been doing nothing but freezing in place and killing each other for those past months.   
“Yeah,” Steven sighed, shifting the tablet in his hands and fighting the urge to cough traces of the water from the Atlantic Ocean all over the screen. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”  
“Everyone wishes that, too,” Amethyst replied.   
“No matter how much they put on a show over it,” Connie added. “Here, back home- everyone’s worried about what happened to you. I can name at least a few ambassadors who would start at least a capital-wide conflict if you weren’t safe and sound.” That was all before she clamped her mouth shut. Any more, and she’d run the risk of sounding like Pearl, and that would betray to everyone the state of their relationship, assuming they were going to plan on telling anyone besides the mentioned ambassadors. Beyond and before that, the both of them would have to acknowledge the state to each other, and that would be much more difficult than even admitting it to the rest of their family.   
But nothing stopped Connie that night from watching with agony at every one of Steven’s slightly gurgling breaths, of cradling his head and still probing him on who’d really done this to him, and running her fingers through the curls she’d fallen in love with from the first day of middle school.   
___  
Steven was released from the hospital a few days later, when the water in his lungs dwindled to almost nil.   
There wasn’t anything more catastrophic, surprisingly, that convinced Steven and Connie of their need to seek out marriage counseling.   
They didn’t know whether it was the shock, instead of relief, of knowing they were going to spend each day with each other for the rest of their lives. They didn’t know whether it was from public pressure, constantly asking them about having children now that they were both twenty and soon to be twenty one in a few months. And lastly, they didn’t know whether it was the slight revulsion that they faced each other’s touch with.   
All Connie did was eat the pancakes Steven made for her, hear Steven saying a cursory, “Would Saturday at three be okay with you for the first marriage counseling appointment?”, and giving him a dull nod.   
However, the next hour was filled with nothing but them debating on how to keep the secret of theirs safe from everyone, their immediate family included. But now, it wasn’t a matter of hiding the symptoms of their broken marriage from their family- surely, they’d noticed for at least a few months now- it was a matter of keeping things legally under control, maintaining their outward appearances. If they didn’t, not even the quartz sisters and their fellow forces would be able to shoulder the humans’ newfound confidence.   
So they hunted across the state, and even across the lower half of Delaware to the north, for a private counselor who had some semi-explicit statements against the United States government on their website. Not that the couple was defecting by any means- that would constitute a betrayal just as icy as it would if they turned against the Gem people. They only figured that someone who wasn’t as loyal to the United States government as most Gems were to Steven wouldn’t rat the couple out to Trump the first chance they got.   
The appointments stretched into the middle of June. Besides the cursory introduction day, the cause of their howling-for-help marriage was made apparent enough for even the counselor to be slightly baffled as to what to do. He didn’t know how to handle what was essentially an arranged marriage, done to secure an alliance between two peoples. He could’ve laughed at something so arcane if it didn’t almost drive both Steven and Connie to tears.   
“Alright,” the counselor said, itching the back of his brown hair. “I...don’t often have clients that have...your needs. In fact, you’re one of the only ones I’ve had that are remotely the way you are. But you clearly love each other. Even if it’s just a matter of friendship. And there’s certainly things you can do to get you two started up, or at least better than where you are now.”  
“Like what?” Steven asked, his hands running through his own curls now, neck bent to the rug in front of the counselor’s desk.   
“Like moving forward to accept your situation. You’ve already done that, right?”  
Connie nodded numbly.   
“I suppose there are things you can do to appreciate each other. We’ll take baby steps, alright? Tell me next week what you’ve done.”  
And he listed things that the couple had both thought of and dismissed from their minds as soon as they’d been driven out of the condo in DC, they realized. Write down five things at the end of every day that you appreciate about your partner, and learn to notice those details in your everyday life. When something goes wrong between the both of you, keep the scope of the country and the two races in mind- at this, Steven winced; he hadn’t been as dutiful as to do that whenever him and Connie began arguing. Imagine you had never met each other your whole life- if Connie’s parents had decided to stay in India and raise her there, or Steven had been raised on Homeworld instead of Earth. Imagine how devoid your life would be then, and resolve to enrich the life you have now.   
All of those went down the both of their throats like rocks to a rain puddle, but the time there at least gave the both of them an opportunity to think. And so they staged dates for the next two weeks in major cities across the United States in order to gain the both of them exposure. On one of them, Steven dressed in the first dress suit he’d been in since he’d been drowned by Lapis. At that, he called her, with her replying that she was alright, if only exhausted. He vowed they’d get together in the next week, making sure to hang up as soon as Connie went in the room; Steven only revealed to her that Lapis was having some struggles with her mental health.   
“If that’s all,” Connie said, asking Steven to help zip up the back of her dress. She was perfect, Steven realized. It was beyond the curves she’d gained while they knew each other, beyond the way the sunlight reflected off of her decorative glasses whenever she smiled. Except there were so many types of perfect people needed for different situations. And the situation they were in wasn’t what she was perfect for.  
“You look beautiful tonight, Steven,” Connie then half-cooed, giving him a kiss on the cheek. She knew Steven’s history of dressing in her clothing at times when he went out, and was alright with him displaying his feminine nature whenever he wished- if Steven had allowed Connie to go swordfighting and wearing dark blue jumpsuits, then who was Connie to deny him? “Sorry if that sounded wrong.”   
“No, not from you,” Steven half-murmured, returning the kiss and transforming it into a peck on the lips.   
He let his eyes droop, hung there for a moment, allowing her to savor his breath the way he did hers, before letting his head fall on her shoulder, not knowing whether this was at all genuine or whether this was to groom the both of the for how they’d have to act in public.  
“Not ever from you.”  
_____  
20-year-old Timmy O’Ryan spent a few hours furiously pacing his way up and down Philadelphia Avenue. He’d been rejected from a job at The Big Donut again due to his criminal record for battery...specifically for dishing out to Randy, the little former boyfriend of someone or another named Grant or Greg or something, one of the biggest punches he’d given out in his entire life.   
But that was nothing compared to what had afforded him enough respect around the human sect for no one to question him when approaching him for a Gem rant they dubbed a "friendly debate".   
He'd stoned Steven and left him for dead.   
When Timmy'd first stepped into Worcester County Jail, he didn’t think it would be anything longer than an excursion for a few months. Although his time as a fresh-meat jailbird wasn’t enough for him to personally know most of the prisoners long enough for them to remember him, his reputation had earned respect from at least eighty percent of his fellow inmates, albeit that was from his gradual misdemeanors since seven years ago in 2016. However, Timmy had no reason to want to expect the kickback the rest of his life would be receiving. Misdemeanors were different- most of them, all he had to do was explain it to the bosses, with most of them laughing and saying TImmy reminded them of the “good ol’ days”, as if stealing money from a lady’s purse in the park so you could buy some food other than the same old shi approved by SNAP had even some idyllic connotations. Then again, looking back, most of those bosses weren’t the best of people in Timmy’s eyes. One of them brought his daughter to work with a bruise or two, try as the boss might to cover them up.   
Things were different now. No matter how unremarkable his next bosses were or how low his demands were of his future jobs, his employers would almost certainly reject him, albeit by federal law they had to give him practically a packet of information telling him that this was the reason why he’d been rejected. But it was beyond that. He had no chance of officially buying a car or buying a property of his own- the best he could hope for was buying a glorified lemon from some seedy neighbor and renting someplace under a grand a month. His chances for voting were forever ruined; any way he could possess a firearm now would only result in yet another felony. And forget any chances of financial aid...as if he were going into college in the first place. Even community college would be considered the aspirations of a delusional version of himself now.  
Timmy decided to get out of Philadelphia Avenue and sit down on one of the benches. This stuff doesn’t depress me, he thought. I swear. But the information racked at his head, every single day, until he wasn’t quite sure what he should feel. Then, he supposed, his only true feelings about it could have manifested back when he was first planning to corner Steven in the alleway- he’d forgotten even those.   
What about his family? he thought, wanting to compose at least some sort of text message from his phone bill that he could only guarantee payment for until the end of next month. His father was still unemployed thanks to the Gems, although him and his mother were scrambling to move somewhere out of Beach City to where jobs were more numerous and Gems were less so. “Baltimore”, his mother had even said, the dreaminess of a stable future practically condensating in her eyes. “I think we could settle for some job in Baltimore, and we don’t even have to live there- we could just live right across the Bay Bridge in Easton...think of it, Timmy, we’d only live about an hour away from where we are now…”  
But they were renters, not buyers. It wasn’t a simple matter of putting their house on the market, waiting for a fellow buyer, and then being able to relocate to another house in Easton. Renting involved a contract, and in this case, that meant they were stuck in this house for about as long as Timmy could make is phone payments, which still meant a few months more stuck here, unable to move on from pacing back and forth on Philadelphia Avenue. And it wasn’t just this contract- it was the contract of whatever apartment or small house they were able to afford in Easton, with them having to set up some sort of agreement on how much they could afford. At that, the landlord could choose whether or not to back out of the deal entirely…  
“Hey, how’re things going?”.   
He looked up to the right, to Rishaba, his very literal partner in crime. There was no sappiness that was reflected in his mother’s eyes, but there also wasn’t as much no-nonsense apathy as Timmy tended to beam out to people these days.   
“Got any jobs for me, Rich?”  
“Not if you don’t count my mother asking me to take over the restaurant. Look, lady,” she said, nonverbally demanding a seat next to TImmy and not noticing him rolling his eyes a little as he scooted a little farther over towards the corner, “I’ve been here all my life, I know how important it is catering to the tourists. But you also know how involved I am with technology. Even you didn’t know how I’d taken apart the Dell when I was a kid, y’know?”  
Timmy nodded, but he was slightly lost in thought, wondering if there were any genuine employment opportunities other than Rishaba’s anecdote. But that was interrupted, as most things in his life were, by a Gem passing by, laughing. He’d gotten bored lately, and although he secretly knew how to type most, if not all of the Gems, he thought it was best for both his state of mind and everyone else’s for him to keep it to himself. But this one was a group of Quartzes- hadn’t all of them gone to the war?  
“Huh,” Timmy half-laughed. “You’d have thought for a second that they’d fight for their culture and everything, since they take so much hot air talking about it, right?”   
This immediately resulted in an elbowing from Rishaba.   
“What the fuck, Rich?!” The laugh extended into something more complete. “If anyone didn’t like them, wouldn’t it be you?”  
“It’s not that,” she said, with a twinge of anger despite her continuing to smile. She looked down slightly at her band hoodie, although she had to admit she would’ve brought her Mr. Universe one since she was from Beach City, and beyond it being one of the marks of a local, she had to admit she liked the thinly-disguised hybrid between David Bowie and AC/DC that was the album’s shtick. “It’s just that my dad’s a veteran, a’ight? You remember that.”  
“Well, you rarely talk about him-” Timmy tried to squeak out, but there immediately came around the corner a group of Sapphires, their blue dresses rippling in the corner of his eye three seconds before their bodies themselves did, laughing about something or other the humans had no idea about. It took Timmy about a half a minute to discover the reason why those slightly menacing feelings were there, but the closer they came, the more blatant it was to Rishaba and Timmy that they were speaking their own language, whatever it was. Rishaba had bothered to learn a few phrases in case she was jumped by them one day; Timmy had to reiterate to her that some English expletives and a Glock would be more than enough.   
But the language was universal to both teenagers when the Sapphire with a batch of a half a dozen pink sequins in the middle of her dress began sweeping the hair out of her eye, pointing to Timmy, giving him the idle finger, and laughing hysterically, leaning on two of her friends’ shoulders as she wiped the tears of glee from her eyes.   
At first, Timmy didn’t know how to react. But that didn’t owe anything to the fact that he wasn’t at all assertive, or that he was inexperienced with conflict like this- this was just the baseline of what he faced on the streets each day, even in the more better-off areas. It was the fact that he didn’t know what to do with the vial in his pocket.   
He’d gotten some of the poison in the backyard just before that action was made more dangerous than just about anything due to the fact that the Gem armies needed it in the front. Entire squadrons of Rubies were employed for the sole purpose of ensuring no one was digging in their yards for poison, and doing this in front of them would immediately result in a quick-and-dirty few seconds, with both the Rubies and the diggers all but disappeared from the spot, never heard of again. Because of this, there wasn’t even an inkling of an idea of yard projects, and so the humans in the Beach City neighborhoods suffered from unkempt lawns, which resulted in yet more resentment on the humans’ part against the Gems. But then again, it was so easy, so easy to just find a spot in the middle of the woods outside his parents’ house at three in the morning, to dig until he found a spot, fill up the vial, and just fill the hole bac up again…  
He saw the research papers on how the poison would affect each species. He knew the consequences of what he’d do. He looked left and right. No one here. No one here except him and Rich, him and the Sapphires, him and his own dignity. Not even a camera..  
And he threw the vial at the Sapphire.  
The shards exploded all over her dress; while only a few penetrated her hologram-like skin, they were quickly healed via temporary crystallic amalgams. The liquid, however, leaked through as if it were the Atlantic churning over the sand, absorbed almost instantaneously to the Gem on her abdomen. The rest of the Sapphires reacted in unabashed rage, with some of them running towards the Rubies and informing them on what was happening so they could form Garnets- then, Timmy’s short life would be all but over. One of them scooped up the hit Sapphire, ripping the fabric out from her abdomen and desperately absorbing the poison from her dress as they both ran. Before Rishaba could say anything, Timmy was already halfway down the street, wanting to be as far away from any possibilities of Garnets as at all possible. He didn’t know whether or not this temporary running was all he had to do to get himself out of trouble. He didn’t know which jurisdictions of authority of each species would know about what he did, let alone the extent of it. He didn’t know whether he’d be able to face his family again, face his friends, face that girl he’d been having an eye on since she started walking up and down Philadelphia Avenue the same time as he did each and every day...  
And Rishaba was alone.  
_____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hurricanes are normal in the area. And the people who live there permanently- or at least through every summer like me- are just kind of used to it. Yes, people get hurt. Yes, people die. Yes, buildings get destroyed. Yes, we’re constantly in rebuild mode in some form or another. But we’re still just... used to it. It’s sort of like the flu season for us- it sucks, but it’s a part of living there year after year. It’s a weird experience, and one of the many things in life that you really can’t fully understand unless you’re living through it.


	36. Season Eight, Chapter Four, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good God, this season is taking me so long to write compared to the past ones.

June 1st, 2023  
Dear Connie,  
I know by the time this letter is written, the last thing you want to do will be to talk about the night I practically destroyed the wall. But nevertheless, I’d like to apologize. And I’m not writing this letter just because you’re my wife- the only way this letter can be exposed to any of the public eye is if our house gets broken into. You’re more than that. You’re deserving of more than this. Everyone is, but most certainly you. And you’re more than welcome to respond to this letter as much as you’d like.   
I know that we’ve been going to therapy for two weeks now, and that alone is enough to send both the public and public policy into absolute shambles. But never have I voiced to you anything that was authentic enough to escape anyone else’s ears. So I suppose I can only start from the beginning.   
Where is the beginning, though? Did it begin when we both announced our vows to each other, when we were essentially blind of what we were about to do? Did it begin when we announced that to the public, and when we proudly declared that this was the first marriage between, well..someone like you and someone like me? (No, that’s not because you’re Hindi and I’m half-white. C’mon, I love it when you laugh like that. You know how it is.)  
Either way, I want to brush aside the fact that we have to remain together, even if it may not be the best idea for us- and that’s an understatement- for us to remain in a marriage that’s at the tension and the level of stress that it is. But nevertheless, I was in the wrong, and I was in the wrong ever more so for not having told you how I think we both felt about us being together since that first month. I’m sorry about being a failure as a husband, a failure as a friend, and, most importantly, a failure to you.  
-Steven

June 2nd, 2023  
Dear Steven,  
First of all, no, you’re not a failure as any of those. You just had one flaw in the way you communicated with me- or, more accurately, neglected to. That says nothing about your worth as a husband, or more accurately, anything else you list.   
I accept your apology. Does that mean you didn’t scare me that night? No. Does that mean that I think us going to therapy was not a good idea, and that we will be fine on our own? No! None of that is true. But the truth is I accept your apology, because I’m fully human, and the most fully human thing to do is to forgive. But surely you know that, you’ve spent twenty years among humans just as you’ve done with Gems, even if you weren’t raised by us!  
And...I suppose I should make something transparent. I suppose I’ve thought about this for years now, although I have no way of knowing whether or not I felt it before you. It’s one of the most difficult things I could ever do, but one of the most important. Like ripping off a Band-aid after a cut is healed.  
I don’t feel content with our marriage.  
Now, what are the ramifications for this? I don’t know. But I’ve been feeling the public pressure every bit as intensely as you have for the two years we’ve been married-beyond that, the four years we’ve been together, except the few months after I first kissed you (and lest you ever forget I did that, I attached a picture at the end of this letter. I have no idea who snuck it. Probably Spinel, that lucky, lucky girl.)  
But I’m glad we made that transparent to each other. At least we’ve made that clear, even if we are a little scared in therapy.  
-Connie   
PS. I was all too wrong for not having checked on you. I had no idea you’d almost drowned, and we still have no idea who did this to you. I swear to God I’ll give ‘em what for if we find out who they are.

It wasn’t much. It wasn’t enough to end the war, or a single battle, or even the pounding inside their own hearts as the planets tumbled and tore around Earth, safe from the Diamonds’ eyes for now as they showed their sympathy, yet were too embroiled in their own civil war for them to permit any substantial operations. But it was a start.  
And it was enough for the both of them to be embracing each other, to be sobbing into the other's arms, each other acutely aware of the other’s suffering, each of them acutely aware of why.  
Each one chained together too tightly, yet each one frightened for the sake of everyone else to try and remove even a single link.   
____  
For all that Peridot gloated to Lapis, Bismuth, and the others about how she was going to be published in a human magazine- not only that, but a human magazine of at least decent repute- she didn’t anticipate her sitting frozen to the chair, petrified.  
She was called to a dark office in the outskirts of Beach City, with the trees swirling around her and occasionally whipping some of the window AC units at the upper areas of the building, sending the whole of her poor body into a flinch that made those next to her question whether or not she was alright. Then again, she was subjected to this sort of questioning from the start due to her being a Gem. There were at least ten other people there, people in pins given by whatever organization harbored them, borderline bombarded by what was even one or two other humans, seeming to guard them from her. So she swore under her breath and disregarded them, went on one of her brand-spanking-new tablets, and fretted away on it until it was her turn. Read over the research religiously, until it had been burned into her mind. The more she read it, the more she had to laugh. It was simple, really. All too simple.  
If a human has the poison thrown on them acutely, they will immediately die and turn into a weak Quartz. Whether or not there are ties to the Diamonds is worthy of another investigation in and of itself.  
If a human is exposed to the poison over time, their liver, kidneys, and urinary and digestive system will be able to eliminate the poisons from their bodies.   
If a Gem has the poison thrown on them acutely, they will have approximately 9 months to live before they die because of their inorganic matter slowly turning organic. Until then, however, they slowly take on human traits, having the equivalent of a weak human body at the time of death.   
If a Gem has the poison exposed to them over time, it will not result in death, but as time passes, the Gem body will eventually weaken and develop human traits. At this point, it is unknown the extent of the effects of the poison on the Gem sect, considering that this was the epicenter of the poison being distributed.  
She was called up without any ceremony and practically yanked up from the floor and dragged to the back room, presumably to prevent any other humans from having the displeasure of seeing her. She was then plopped down in one of the chairs, the cursing extending to more than her breath, and noticed the human that had taken her there was raising his hand as if to slap her. She blinked, and put it into perspective that if she was going to ever make it out of the facility, she was going to have to remain quiet about the humans’ mistreatment of her, at least for now, while she made quite a few schemes in her head about how she was going to escape. But the fog behind the window rose up nevertheless, threatening her plans of clear visibility, but this would mean the same for the humans- she mulled it over, then tossed it to the side. Then shivered.   
Because she had been forced there, didn’t she, after all? It wasn’t something as blatant as being held up at gunpoint like she’d known at least one or two of her fellow Gem colleagues who had assisted her in her research as having suffered from. At least for now.   
But this had been going on for a few weeks now so far. During the middle of May, during one of the protests, she’d heard the chants to release the data, release the data, release the data. And if anyone had any sense of better judgement to work with to know that releasing the information could result in catastrophe on the part of the Gems, it would’ve been Peridot. But slowly, their claims grew more harsh. They would take not only her colleagues, but random Gems that happened to be walking near Peridot, and goped them, refused to release them until Peridot told them, even if unenthusiastically or with nothing more than the cursory twinge of wanting safety for whoever had been grabbed onto by the humans. And when those verbal promises failed, they would come up to Peridot’s home and start making the routine brick-throwing that was up until then an occasion only reserved for Steven or someone with more notorious standing in the humans’ eyes. Then they would come up over the fence, even if it was only four or five of them, began directly harassing her and carrying video cameras should she do anything to fight back. Fight back she did, but she had to enlist Lapis’, Bismuth’s, and in one particularly bad instance, both, in order to send them running while destroying whatever electronics they had on hand.  
And that wasn’t even counting the rest of the retribution that the Gems would suffer from had she not released the data. They would come up to her, some of the more passive ones promising bribes for those living in the Gem sect, some of the more aggressive ones threatening to bring more people or bring firearms the next time they came or, if they were devoid of any other ideas, simply “kill every last one” of the Gems living in the sect without any preamble and without remotely the established plan Peridot set up when arranging her daily routine, let alone keeping secret her nation-devastating research that could cost even the winning side millions of dollars in the revenue it would take to exact that research and plan for outliers or any particularly pressing side effects of the poison. One of them had even threatened to, in a spirit of demented revelry, in his own words, “take a flamethrower and stick that astard right in the middle of that Gem there’s back,” having pointed to Lapis when he had done so. This had caused Peridot to have to walk away in order to contain whatever emotions were exploding in her chest at the moment, having to hide from those around her she was actually having some difficulty breathing.   
All of this had resulted in a promise to the Gems that she would fulfill the humans’ requests, and nothing more or less.  
She was sitting here now, and she was having this slight difficulty now that she heard footsteps on their way to her room. Her shoulders tensed until she thought they had smacked hard enough against the wall for her to feel them, which was a miracle for a Gem. The footsteps passed by; relieved, she decided that was a good time to barricade the door.   
What had she gotten herself into? Already, people were knocking on the door, asking her if she was ready to begin the interview of her findings, as if they were more oblivious to what they were going to exact on her than what the sand was underneath the waves every six hours, when the high tide came in. In addition, Peridot thought, they must have guards surrounding at least the front entrances of the building. And then she thanked her stars, more divine and embodiments of their goddesses in Gem culture rather than the lucky entities they were in American human culture,that she was called out of the waiting room. She had the perfect vantage point from the front entrance.   
Quick, quick, now was the time to put hours and hours of her work to use! She couldn’t help but plant a grin on her face in the midst of the nearly ceaseless protests, as she rummaged about on her tablet and, in the span of ten seconds, had summoned a pseudo-set of limb enhancements, albeit the both of them only had the strength to perforate household glass. Frustrated, Peridot spent five more seconds calibrating it ‘till all of the limb enhancements converged to her right hand. There. A genuine limb enhancer.   
But no time to relish it. She calculated the force necessary to smash the window without causing much of a noise disturbance; when the knocks became louder, she flinched, then impulsively smashed her hand into the window as forcefully as she possibly could, just barely summoning her visor in time for the shards to bounce off her eyes and land harmlessly into her lap. All except one, as she felt a sharp pain shooting up her arm.  
No time to even think of that, she finally reasoned, as the expletives came from those behind the door. Before anyone else could conjure up any more strategies, Peridot was out the window, howling as quietly as she could as three more shards found themselves in the leg that had shielded the rest of her body from the jagged edges of the glass.   
She looked back for an instant- just an instant- and shuddered. The crater was yawning, threatening to drag Peridot in. For years, the humans had used glass windows as their template when debating how to make weapons that would shatter Gems. Luckily enough, they hadn’t had access to the breaking point.   
Normal guns were the second best option.  
And it was an option the humans were turning to now, or at least were preparing to, as she heard the telltale noises of the guards rushing to and fro from the front entrances. With no time to spare, she sprinted as fast as she possibly could, using her height to her desperate advantage. Into tall grass she fled, with the garter snakes practically covering her ankles; it was all that she could muster in order to prevent herself from shrieking. Especially when she smelled her own blood.   
She didn’t know, or more accurately but still by all means true, didn’t appreciate how far the distance truly was from the building to the nearest warp pad, especially considering the fact that she was now taking what the humans called “the scenic route”. The garter snakes were now latching on to the blood; she felt one of them latch on. At first, she yelled, continuing to run albeit with a lmp, but she then eventually reasoned that the more latched on, the fewer room there would be for others, and the fewer wounds there would be. And the fewer more fatal snakes there would be, assuming there were any on the Maryland-Delaware eastern shore, even if it impeded her running speed.   
She didn’t hear the shouts of the guards anymore. But now, 139th Street rolled in front of her. She flinched again- her being able to recognize the street meant that it was a major one; despite Beach City’s population only surmounting a little more than 7,000, there were at least five hundred streets to memorize that were heavier-populated, “touristy” drags alone. Now, the impediment of her speed would cost her dearly; she quickly surmised there would be no possibility for whatever increases in maneuverability, and promptly ripped the snakes out of the side of her leg.   
She screamed. It was drowned out by the passing cars.   
For now, she had to be grateful that it was tourism season, albeit early on enough for the roads to not be abhorrently congested enough for there to be relentless stop-go traffic. And when the deed was done, the crystal agglutinates rapidly multiplying across her skin, she didn’t waste any time calculating what would be the precise movements she would need to take, stumbling a few times and having to rely on sheer common sense in order to make it through the later half of the road.  
It didn’t work. She felt the crushing agony of a tire from a wide pickup truck running over her foot and sixty miles per hour. Now, she had to scream; it took all of her energy to drag her throbbing foot to the end of the road, and it took a little more than the energy she had to assess the damage.   
From the fact that there was pain, and the fact that she could move it, she sighed with relief. She would be rendered immobile for three weeks, tops. And besides, she thought, grimacing as she went, I can always enlist the help of my limb enhancements, can’t I? The thought, however, did little to stop her from screaming all the more, undoubtedly frightening away a squirrel or two, as she fitted the limb enhancement on her foot, having transferred it from her hand.   
Hopefully, she thought after taking a few minutes to learn how to breathe again, there would be no more windows to smash.   
Still, she only needed a half a minute or so to learn how to stumble around the woods without bumping into any of the trees. And so she continued, pulling up her tablet once or twice to find the safest route to Fenwick Street, where the former site of the barn and Steven’s house were. She then later recognized, with a half-groan, half-howl of defeat, that the only route by which she wouldn’t have to embark on another fine journey across a major tourist road would be to embark on a fine journey across a major tourist trap- the beach.   
Sand. Sand poured, almost a half-gallon by the time the whole ordeal was over, into her modified limb enhancer, eventually being shiften and pounded by her foot into a pile of microscopic spikes that were almost the intensity of fiberglass. The land constantly shifted, whether she chose the sand that the tourists spread out their umbrellas under or whether she chose the water closer to the beach, where those who’d go boogie boarding would ram her even at this hour in the night. Because of all of this, tears were trickling down her cheeks by the time she staggered into the house she and Peridot shared in Homeworld, collapsing. She let the pain hammer both her feet until her eyes eventually closed; she didn’t need the sleep in the least, but she found the behavior to be comforting when solo and intimate with someone else. But Lapis was god knows where, and would remain so until Peridot woke the next morning, Peridot telling her everything.   
“Why the hel would you help Jasper?” Lapis was practically shaking now. Clutching her sides, not quite digging her fingers in them now that they were sore from her encounter with her own emotions after she nearly drowned Steven. Peridot was at first confused as to how Lapis made this conclusion, but eventually found out that refraining from assisting the humans would make them an easier force for Jasper and her forces to defend. Peridot bit her tongue at any mention of her helping Amethyst, as well, especially considering the fact that Peridot craved her when sleeping in the barn last night.   
“I thought-” Lapis let the tears remain at the bottom of her throat. “I thought you were finished working under her-” The tears turned into anger, and as soon as it happened, they coursed down her cheeks. Oddly enough, that made the emotion easier to navigate for her, and before long she was exhausted. More submissive than normal. Ready to listen to whatever Peridot had to say.   
A few seconds passed by. The both of them had time to appreciate the breeze that came with living a mile or so from the Atlantic, but none of it seemed to cross their minds.   
“Listen,” said Peridot, gritting her teeth with or without the shards in her leg. “I didn’t help Jasper, alright? Or at least that wasn’t my intention. And...I know I’m not very god with my execution of them. But keep in mind that I’d be doing this regardless of who was leading the conflict. I’m not going to disclose this information if this means we’ll lose on the front instantly. This information needs to remain private, and I did what I had to in order to keep it safe.”  
“Then why did you-” Lapis ran her fingers through her hair, clawed a little at her sides, and then went somewhat limp, although her back was still more rigid than anything Peridot had observed in even the stray cats that wandered at times in the Gem suburbs and made homes in the rubble that resulted from the ongoing months of protest. “Why-”  
“I did it to help all of Gemkind.” Peridot then made the move of patting Lapis’ shoulder, which for most of the people who knew her, would mean her lashing out at them. Still, Lapis had to hold back her gasp.   
“I did it to help all of Gemkind.”   
For once, Peridot’s eyes were kind. Since the war began, finally, someone’s eyes were kind.  
And with that, Lapis rose from her seat.   
_______  
Peridot told her plight to everyone next. By now, these morning meetings had grown to be a part of the daily routine; everyone else now ate in the living room, the kitchen having unofficially been decided as the place to resolve conflict. Slowly, Steven learned to latch onto each childhood memory, storing them in a place deep where he wasn’t quite sure whether it was his brain or his gem. Learned to detach the place where he had grown up from the kitchen, resolving never to look down at the chair legs lest he see the bite marks he’d made on them when he was teething .  
“And you’re sure they were all human?” Connie asked. “No Gem belligerents anywhere?” Everyone except Steven marvelled every day at how much she’d grown in her knowledge on war, undoubtedly her least favorite subject if one was to ever ask her about it when she was in middle school.   
“No, I’m sure,” replied Peridot. “I examined them pretty thoroughly before I stepped into the building.”  
Greg was feeling better as of late, his PSA levels for his cancer were slowing down, becoming less exponential these days. “And what about the building? If it’s still there, maybe I can try and investigate.”  
Peridot shook her head. “Lapis and I tried that this morning, with negligible results. The building was still standing, indicating it didn’t denote any temporary usage, but the building was empty nonetheless and, from my analyses, was scrubbed clean. Unless any of you object, I don’t believe this building has anything of merit in terms of evidence.”   
There was nothing three seconds later, but the courtroom found itself far from adjourned. Discussion then merged to what would then become of Peridot, seeing as she was the one who had originally done the findings, with a brief preamble at how could everyone have missed this and why didn’t they think of taking precautions sooner. She couldn’t be kept hiding in the house the way she did during the entirety of 2017 in the barn- that would only magnify her misery until she, out of spite, gave the information away, or at least escaped under Lapis’ surveillance, thus putting herself into an even more precarious situation. They considered her dedicating her services to the army, but only for a moment- everyone had no choice but to keep in mind that not only would Lapis not have her, her being in the army would paint a target on her back exponentially than what it was now. There was one family member that didn’t live in the immediate Beach City area that wouldn’t mind taking in an extra Gem, and that was Uncle Andy in Hagerstown- but that was still in the state of Maryland, close to the Appalachian mountains as it may be. However, Beach City had established forty-foot barbed wire all across its vicinity, and although it was technically frowned upon by the state, the national guard would come regularly, and many a conflict almost broke out, with a few injuries still being caused among both parties. Any belligerent human presence there would be doubled now that this incident didn’t occur. At the same time, this only occurred in the local jurisdiction. So they drummed up a few of the more rural places in Virginia, Pennsylvania, possibly the West Virginia panhandle to go to, although they warned her there were no contacts there that they knew of.   
She nodded. “So to Hagerstown I’ll go, then.”  
After an hour of conversation with Uncle Andy, she was greenlighted to be driven to Hagerstown, and in another hour, she had finished packing, wondering about Lapis’ well-being. Lapis, meanwhile, thought of this same subject, having buried her fingers in her hair and rocking, at the rate of twice a minute, back and forth in her seat, isolated from the conversation the others were having that she would have very much benefitted from had she been there.   
“Before we all leave, I have to tell you guys that I’ve been in contact with Homeworld.”  
As if it were a dying relative, everyone thought to pay more attention, even if only subconsciously. Pearl stopped her dishwashing, which at this point had become something just slightly more harmful than a habit, and looked more directly in Steven’s eyes than she had in months. Greg considered questioning Steven as to how and why he was in contact with Homeworld, but he knew his son, and if he interrupted him, he’d throw him off track, although he wasn’t quite sure whether that was a characteristic that had developed in his son just now or whether it had been there since he was born. He kept his mouth shut.   
“I-”   
He kept his gaze forward, his eyes grave and his eyebags betraying that the situation was worsening. Everyone absorbed that in the span of a second, and in the span of another, Garnet was leaning forward, hand slightly outstretched, as if she were about to pat Steven on the shoulder and ask him what exactly was wrong with Homeworld. He then closed his eyes for a moment, having difficulty judging which memories to shut off and which memories to present to the others.   
“They’re dying, so many of them. Their resources are running out. They’re escaping to neighboring planets. I don’t-I don’t know about the Diamonds’ retribution, or- I saw one of them be shattered on the streets in a demonstration, although I’m not sure which side...”   
He covered his face with a forehead so as to not meet everyone’s eyes, but he eventually coaxed himself out of it, Connie’s hand on his shoulder.   
“They need help. No matter how many times they tell us they don’t. I don’t know exactly how we’ll help them. But we already know that me being there will be...will...it’ll help him. I’m right, aren’t I?”  
Everyone nodded, or at least didn’t dare protest.   
Soon as Peridot came out, consoling a slightly crying Lapis, and convincing Lapis to come with her to Hagerstown, the courtroom was adjourned  
___________  
The trip to Homeworld was like smoke choking the throat of Steven’s mind, albeit that was only a thin veil for what had actually passed. The carnage was quickly being replaced by ruin; entire scores of ships were leaving the capital, fleeing to who knows which planet. However, the majority of the population- ninety percent, by Steven’s estimate- remained in Homeworld, either attempting to rebuild it or mourning over whatever they couldn’t. He and Connie had to wear steel-tipped boots for the quality of their soles- otherwise, he would step on enough shards in the span of a minute for the bottom of his foot to be caked in cuts, regardless of whether or not he wore socks. He sobbed, choked it back in his throat, collected whatever he could in his hands to be interred in a burial site outside of Homeworld; when he’d managed to revive Jasper, all of her shards had been together, whereas what he carried in his hands were nothing but rainbow-colored fragments with no inherent order or sense.   
It took even the soles he had nearly being penetrated and for him to have to cover his eyes and keep his line of sight limited to two inches in front of him, utterly alone in the streets save for the shards, before he came upon the palace, his first thought being had Spinel not died on Earth, she would have here during this conflict.   
The palace may as well have been in shards as well. Entire walls were crumbled and reduced to a little more than half of what they used to be, although the palace no longer had an entrnace to speak of; all Steven had to do was locate a huge hole in the wall, the size of three Bismuths and a Garnet, to find his way in the throne room. The throne must have been more heavily guarded thatnn the other areas of the palace, it only having a spear thrown down the middle and a csixty-foot crack extending from the center down to the base to betray any evidence that there was any conflict at all. Steven felt the chill stretch down to his legs now. He knew that , while the conflict had originally been based on fusion laws, every single citizen that hadn’t evacuated to more rural parts of Homeworld or other regions entirely were taking out every ounce of anger they had on the Diamonds. Had he been fourteen, he would have stayed days here, weeks attempting to resolve the conflict. But he knew that there was a point in species that grew to be as sentient as humans did- or, thanks to the chronology of it all, it was the other way around- where they grew blind to reason, and all that had to be done was wait for their anger to be sated before he attempted to appeal to that sense again.   
So he could do nothing but watch, alone, as he let the capital of Homeworld burn.   
He ventured deeper into the palace, disregarding the room where Pink Diamond used to reside in despite the fact that psychologically, there may have been a high chance that this was the room where the other Diamonds were hiding in. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes he had to walk, until he heard the Diamonds attempting to be quiet, albeit that sounded like the entire foundations of buildings shifting. He would’ve bubbled himself and sprinted as quickly as he could if he’d heard crumbling, but all he needed was the distinction between shifting and crumbling, him even having to put his ear to the clear quartz wall for a few moments before he ran to the room.   
He had to yell multiple times for the Diamonds to acknowledge his presence. He was a little taken aback at first that not all of them were there- Yellow had no doubt gone to mitigate the damage that had been done to the capital, although Steven knew better than to dismiss her even for a few seconds as dead. And he was even more taken aback that Blue was the only one who’d appeared submissive; White made her attempts to comfort her occasionally, but for the most part, was relaying orders to either Yellow or whichever Gems had managed not to defect. White, in fact, looked a little irritable to see Steven, with Blue having to be the one to calm White this time.   
White sighed, although she thought to revert to English instead of Gem for Steven’s comfort despite knowing he knew both. “What did you come here for, Pink? You’re here to help, hopefully?”  
Steven instinctively pressed his foot into the ground. “Until you don’t call me that, nothing.”   
Blue gasped a little, although she should’ve known by now that Steven had nothing to fear by approaching White in that commanding tone. White heaved a heavier sigh and said, “Steven, how do you plan on helping us?”  
“I need you to help me.” Steven rummaged through his pocket, and it was at that point that White thought to look down. Good, Steven couldn’t help but think. She’s still paranoid enough to think that whatever I find, she’ll have to explain. He then fetched the vial from Steven’s pocket, White approaching it unflinchingly. Steven grew a little impressed, but was still a little disturbed by the reality that him and White had much the same personality, almost completely reversed from when Steven was sixteen before the war started. “This, I believe, is the poison Spinel brought down with her, right?”  
“Correct”, White said, looking back at her console to avoid Steven’s gaze. “I observed it while we were visiting Earth to collect Spinel, who, after she was put in your care, has been dead for God knows how many Earth months.”   
Steven wouldn’t be taken for a fool, wouldn’t put the vial back in his pocket. Although he couldn’t help himself from letting a single, angry tear fall in order to keep Blue’s gaze on him. “But you knew her, didn’t you? Or at least you knew the basics of how she acted. She was calm, wasn’t she?”  
“Yes,” White said, gripping the edge of her console, thinking to repeat the ‘yes’. “She was perfectly calm, and perfectly loyal to us for the short time she was here other than, for some ungodly reason, consecrating herself to Earth’s care. Her innocence made her have such charm, enough for us to have looked for her as soon as we discovered she was missing.”  
“And you know of her story, right?”  
“Yes, how could I not? All alone out in the vast reaches of space, abandoned on a planet trapped from anyone else’s reach, without any assets to speak of, practically remaining psychologically as a child for thousands upon thousands of years...who could bare it?”  
“Which meant she wouldn’t have access to an injector and hundreds of gallons of poison. More importantly, she wouldn’t have dreamed of it.”   
Complete silence from White, both on the part of her interaction with Steven and her interaction with Yellow Diamond on her console. Blue Diamond immediately froze from fear, looking at Steven for a split second as if recoiling from a sense of betrayal before attempting to find some sort of ambiguous space to stare at. Even Steven himself tensed a little despite his credibility for approaching White in this manner, and relished the moments in between the tension leaving him and the tension returning after White gripped the console.   
Complete silence on everyone’s part after this, until the entirety of the room’s air lifted when White rose.  
“Steven. What. Do you want.”  
More silence, until Steven felt his own hand start its own pattern of clenching- at its apex thinking, if only someone were here, oh, Connie, Dad, Amethyst, Garnet, Pearl, all of you, if only any of you were here- and unclenching.   
“I want to see what you know about the poison. It may prove...influential in our own conflict.”  
More silence, until it reached a point to where Steven felt a twinge of physical sickness.   
“And if I help you, Steven?”  
He knew the question ten minutes before she asked, which was why, on his way to the room, he had arranged exactly which fellow diplomats from which nations would carry out which policies in order to execute the end of the bargain he was giving White in exchange for a tactic that had taken months for him, Jasper, Amethyst, and everyone else in the Gem forces to execute due to it simply having so many ramifications for both species. And he knew- and this gave him enough confidence to reply to White- that should White, or any of the other Diamonds, exact any weak form of retaliation on him that they could for whatever reason, the Gem forces would be quick to safeguard him; Jasper was the last to agree to this, but ultimately did so upon reminding herself Steven was Pink and Pink was gone, even if only in the sense that she was no longer in Homeworld as part of the Diamonds.   
“Then I’ll send you a fourth of the spoils if this war is won.”  
More silence. Unbearable silence; Steven found himself rocking back and forth and looking this and that way around the room, eventually coming to a point where he nonverbally asked a still baffled Blue for help. Blue responded with her own expression that portrayed her as twice as baffled as she was in actuality before White finally released one word.  
“Done.”  
And then multiple paragraphs.   
“Firstly, bear in mind that whatever information I give you, it will be of the utmost importance to both humans and Gems, although annoyingly so; this wouldn’t be the case if I had my rathers. Secondly, keep in mind that all of this pertains to what happened in the first Gem War and bears no implications on whatever conflict her colony may be suffering from now. Now for the meat of it. Back in the first of the Gem Wars, one of our teams of Emeralds discovered a planet similar to the one you described Spinel as being left on- hmm, she thought to tell all of you rather than us- in any event, three of the five Emeralds that were sent there were ordered to be stationed long-term in order to monitor the effects of the poison on the planet. Nine months later, they had all died, and had seemed to take on traits that almost completely matched the humans we’d then recently discovered on Earth.   
Of course, we discovered this back on Homeworld as soon as we weren’t running any more crucial operations towards the war effort, not wanting whatever had killed the Emeralds to be utilized on the fronts on Earth. Then, similar to the Peridot that you seem to have grown accustomed to, we conducted our own research, and found nearly identical results. We evacuated any remaining Emeralds there and dismissed the poison as being too far for such an underequipped rebel force to have the wherewithal to reach the planet bearing the poison.   
However, thousands of years later, at, erm- her request, we decided to give her one of these planets while in her relative infancy so she could enjoy a reprieve from the horrors of war, which she was so unaccustomed to. We were not even made aware of her little playmate until, thousands of years later, we discovered the broken transmission after you had left upon delivering your speech in 2019. She then told us her story, albeit without the ability to see our faces, until we...we granted her an injector.   
Don’t be alarmed, by any means!- our intent was not for her to set herself on a course to Earth. We merely intended that she have the resources required for her to protect herself…” Here, Steve’s mind wandered slightly the way it usually did during his political romps, knowing nearly every word that would come forth from White would be a lie through her teeth. “...should she encounter any violent extraneous forces. However, in the long and short of it- yes, I officially confirm the research your Peridot has done has proven to be accurate. Lastly…”  
A brief pause; this time, Steven nearly interrupted her.   
“Thank you. Thank you for the aid, Steven. I...I have no idea how we’ll survive without your help.”  
He gripped the wall before leaving. “The help isn’t mine to give. All of us have been discussing this for months.”  
And Blue continued to wail for refuge from the silence.   
_____  
Steven deliberated for a week what to do with this information, and deliberated for a week with his usual participants in his meeting, Gene and OJ included, on what to do with the plan he’d formed.   
“It’s not safe here, that’s for sure,” Steven began, making sure to pick himself up where he left off before anyone could say anything that would sway him. “If it were to stay here, all of the defenses you see around Beach City would be doubled, tripled… and that’s the best-case scenario. Not to mention our proximity to DC…” he trailed off, giving others the chance to bounce around with the idea.  
Greg was the first to pitch in. “Well, if DC isn’t an option- and I’m not saying I thought it was from the beginning, Schtuball- then the next is to carry it to somewhere as far away as you can possibly get from there. Without going into a different country, of course.” It was simple, he had to admit, but no one made an objection to it.   
So Greg made the rare move and continued. “I have to admit I’m biased because I used to mess around in the entertainment industry, but how about California? Maybe not the southern areas, but in NoCal- that’s Northern California for all of you guys- or...or! Aren’t the Gem forces already making attempts to mass-produce it out in the west?”  
He would’ve continued to ramble, but at this point, everyone was beginning to notice Lapis, who by now was not only trembling slightly, but was also gripping the edge of her seat tight enough for the wood to begin creaking. By now, it had been made clear to everyone that Lapis hated any mention of the war, but according to Gene and OJ’s speculations, it was only because she was the type of woman who came across to others as a pacifist. Still, they registered, and OJ was the first one to ask Lapis if she was alright, Gene having the sense to stop him from making the move of touching Lapis’ shoulder.   
“Yes, I’m fine,” Lapis insisted, ultimately convincing no one. “It’s just... this all makes me very uncomfortable, so bear with me here. But what I think is...it wouldn’t be wise for us to try producing it independently. I think it would be best to leave it to them, but I think it would also be best to check on their status. Although burn me at the stake if anyone attributes any sort of military strategy teaching to me.”  
Gene chuckled politely. “No one’s burning anyone at the stake. If it’s a good piece of advice, it’s a good piece of advice.” And when Lapis smiled, Gene genuinely thought to return it.   
Peridot, who was safe and boarding with Uncle Andy in Hagerstown by now and was joining the meeting via her beloved tablet, after seeing if Lapis was alright, had seen the question from a mile away; everyone else could see it at least half that length, but didn’t think to say anything of it. “Alright, there’s just one problem- there are over thirty nine thousand gallons embedded in the immediate vicinity around the former site of the injector alone. Unless we find a way by which to destroy it, there’s not even a plausible method of removing even a hundredth of it out of the ground. And not to mention the amount of unwanted attention if we managed to remove it from the ground, considering this is the reason why any unauthorized digging has been strictly prohibited for the past four years.”   
From there, each one offered up their thoughts, but nothing came of it besides circling back to past agreed-upon points. Eventually, the conversation dwindled to a halt, with the conversation switching to if there were any conceivable way to free up Bismuth’s schedule, and then to Pearl’s and Lapis’ well-being and if they needed a short reprieve from being in the now war-imbued Beach City.   
And not a single one of them saw the contact that Steven managed to call.


	37. Season Eight, Chapter Four, Final Part

Steven knew Jasper would be the last person among all of those hundreds he knew as well as her to ask for help.   
Which is why he ordered a small squadron of three or four Zirconia who were not acutely needed in the battlefront and were instead desperately attempting- and vigorously failing- to do Steven’s job mending the relations between them and the humans to launch an analysis as to the state of the battlefield. In simpler terms, this meant them filming direct combat footage under high cover, lest any media conglomerates get ahold of it.   
Over those next weeks, the footage was enough to send the entirety of the group, again with Gene and OJ included, fixed in front of the living room television. Steven had to pre-screen the footage first in order for him to leave so his subconscious wouldn’t interfere with the footage. And everyone’s conscious, and even more severe their subconscious, was affected by the footage. Of course, OJ had to leave the room as soon as he saw the first Gem be instantly shattered by an entirely stray bullet, the shards flying through the air at thirty miles an hour and embedding themselves in the now-bleeding chest of the Gem that had just had her comrade-in-arms due in front of her. Pearl, who was at first sitting up on her own, clung to Greg during the second half of the footage when one of the Quartzes defected to the human side, shooting the Ruby she was serving with in the chest three times, watching her horrific attempts at breathing for a few moments before shooting her in the head where her Gem was and watching her slump over. Garnet, almost as if it were a challenge, had attempted to keep herself fused for the entire hour, but had broken down at the fifty-eight minute mark, with none of them knowing whether she wa being embedded in flashbacks or whether she was simply just as overwhelmed as anyone, involved in the war or not, would’ve been . Lapis had declined to watch the viewing until that evening, when she and Peridot had agreed to watch the footage together, if only virtually.   
And all the while, all Connie was wondering was what the scope of how the poison had affected the Gem forces, only taking a pause to hold back her own vomit when one of the Quartzes, her intestines dangling from her stomach, could be heard quietly laughing as she desperately brought down a piece of rubble on a human soldier’s chest over and over until he stopped moving.   
Soon as Garnet thought to fuse, hesitated for a ew moments, and then moved for the remote to turn off the television, everyone in the room took part in a hush. A hush that lasted a long, long while. A hush that lasted a few tears from at least everyone there.   
From then, what more was there to do but leave? At least that was the thought exchanged by everyone there. Pearl and Greg were the first ones to leave, Pearl muttering a few words that were nonsensical at this point about how they never should’ve let Amethyst be sent there and if only Amethyst were here now. .Even then, a few could hear even Greg heaving a sob before he and Pearl left the room in a state of half-emptiness. The noise of Lapis’ own crying could practically be heard then, even if she were still in her house. And from there, each person thought to do one thing- rearrange the pillows, take a piece of lint off their jeans, smooth out an area of the couch that had been roughened up when they’d sat down- before leaving and letting themselves, no matter how overtly extroverted they were, ruminate over what they thought of all of this in private for at least twenty minutes or so. In a matter of those twenty minutes, with Pearl venturing out of her room to tell Connie she would be doing the dishes that afternoon, Connie was the last one there.   
She was disturbed about the war footage, certainly, but she wasn’t by any means paused in thought about it. She was paused in thought about what to say to Steven, although she wasn’t quite at the point to where she thought to be irate at him despite him being even indirectly involved in all of this. And she then moved to sitting there, fiddling her phone in her hand, waiting. Waiting until there was a point that no one would be left remaining in the room, waited until the water in the sink shut off and Pearl went off to finish her painting in the garage, and, when nothing else stood in the way, waiting for the air conditioner to shut off. That was when she finally rose from her seat, walked to her own little corridor outside, turned on her phone.   
“Steven.”  
There was nothing. Even he wouldn’t provide her a relief from the silence; the call had been directed to voicemail.  
“Steven, this has to stop.”  
_____  
When Steven got the call, he of course knew there were no implications of Connie wanting him to resign, as if he were, at least morally, in a position to do so. He knew every intonation in her voice, and immediately upon receiving the call, called her back and told her his plan of setting to work.   
This involved a few days of him researching exactly what coordinates the front was and how much, if at all, it had shifted over these past months, which, when someone from one of the contacts of the state representative for Oregon’s daughters made a model detailing this. The stalemate line had shifted back and forth, quivering uselessly like failing heart tissue, wasting more lives deaths than he or anyone else directly or indirectly in the Gem forces had cared to admit. And according to the timeline, this had been going on since at least the beginning of summer.   
Steven knew. He knew that there were concepts upon concepts amassed within the Gem forces for innovation. Serums that would bend light around the gems inside their bodies and make them undetectable by the visible light spectrum as they fought. Bullets that were eerily similar to dum-dums in both structure and function, but managed to skirt around the laws involved in them just so. And lastly, chemicals. Chemicals for hundreds of different projects, all of which required either the cooperation of other countries- which meant them getting involved in the conflict- approval by dozens of bureaucracies, or both.   
He knew what he had to do.   
He knew he had two choices in front of him- to get the existing poison Spinel had taken down with her in 2019 over to the Gem side or watch   
every   
single   
one of them die.   
And, unlike his mother, he couldn’t bear to watch any more of them slump over.


	38. Hiatus Until December!

Since I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, I will be writing an original novel. While I could work on both these works at the same time, that would not only thin out my overall long-term planning abilities for both, but will also decrease the overall quality on them.  
Thank you for all your support, and I'll see you the nineteenth, which is the anniversary of be beginning this work.


	39. ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

One-Year Anniversary of my SU Fic Where I Write Seasons 6-10

Link is here if you want to check it out: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21485128/chapters/51204640

This may seem trivial, but this is my main project I've been working on in my spare time, and it has now reached the 130,000 word count. I could not be more proud of myself and those in my life who supported and helped me in creating this work. This is my longest work, and the one that has plunged me into the most devotion to it. I have no intentions of stopping.

I normally don't post about more personal stuff on here. But I think it's worth mentioning, and, more importantly, worth celebrating, how this idea came to fruition. 

It was 2019, pre-COVID, and thus, pre- the world descending into Hell. It had been almost two months since the Steven Universe movie had released, and I was still very much reeling with the hype of it. I dressed as Spinel; that year, the Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, VA (more accurately described as a hangar than any sort of museum), about an hour from where I lived back then, hosted free admission to anyone who'd made the effort to put together their Halloween costume and stand in line for two hours in order to get into the building. Throughout the three hours I spent in there, in the thick, and dare I say foggy lines of people, I saw the familiarity of WWII planes, the outstanding knowledge and life experience of those who'd been temporarily hired for the day to explain then, and was consistently wowed by the displays of humanity's scientific advancements when it comes to space.

But none of those could come close to when I saw the museum's showpiece With all its raw nakedness and inherent awe, the Discovery spaceship was strategically placed at the all but bare center of the Air and Space Museum; nearly every other vehicle intended for flight was tucked away in the top of the hangar on strings and pathways that were only accessible via elevators. Standing at a length of 122 feet and having a wingspan of 79 feet, the behemoth was a testimony to all of mankind. It had orbited the Earth for 30 years, and was finally establishing its resting place at the hangar. 

It was then that I knew what I had to do. 

Did I have any knowledge that the show would have an entire season beyond the movie? Did I have any knowledge as to how close the show was to its end? No. My only knowledge of it then, other than the plot almost subconsciously absorbed from when I watched it around the ages of 10-13, was that I loved it, wanted to absorb every ounce of the plot and lore, and had my own imagined continuation. This came especially due to the fact that during the summer (but only during the summer at the time), I was one of the few to live in Ocean City, Maryland, the town Beach City is based off of. 

This work, and my life, has changed significantly from when I walked out of the hangar that day on Halloween 2019. While I spent until November 19 planning the basic aspects of it out, even both that in my life changed almost unrecognizably. Much of the basic plot points stayed, but the nuances of it either made or broke the story. Originally, the characters Gene and OJ were meant to replace Steven starting the later half of season 7 as the main characters, but over the eight months that took place between me planning and writing the season, I found a way for them to rather enhance them. For the war itself, I spent hours upon hours planning on which attacks would take place when by both sides, almost as if I were planning them myself. And throughout the year, I gained so many insights on dear Jasper through both my experience with war vets and my own battle through PTSD, and I cannot be more excited for her albeit tragic character development in seasons to come. 

Just as this work has gone through these changes, however, my life has experienced them, for better or for worse. I traveled to so many countries, and learned so much about both myself and other cultures. My entire support system was all but uprooted- other than moving from where I'd lived almost all my life at that point, my best friend was killed, I cut fries with my toxic parents, I said goodbye to the friends I'd spent all my life with, and I had to give away my beloved dogs. I suffered from gunshot sounds, and had to be admitted to the hospital. Throughout all this, however, I encountered my own mental health issues, having finally been exacerbated by all these life events. And I managed to start healing. That meant more to me than all the trauma, all the suffering, that had happened to me since I started writing these seasons.

I cannot be more proud of myself, more proud of the Crewniverse for motivating me to stick to it, and most importantly, proud of all of you for supporting me and my work during this time.


	40. Season Eight, Chapter Four- "Vysoka Gora"

In the transliterated Crystal Gem dialect, "Vysoka Gora" means a high mountain. As well as being symbolic for a prospective journey, it was also notably the name inscribed to Aaron from the Christian bible, and, rather than Aaron, is the name used in various Crystal Gem translations of the Bible. 

_________________________________  
More weeks passed. Steven and Connie ventured out in order to attend their routine counseling sessions, but even the counselor noticed Steven's more reserved, even accidentally irritable temperament compared to how he'd normally seen him.  
He'd had to establish a plan with Jasper and Eyeball on how to deliver the poison, who was now working under her wing in an impressive brigadier general position, and occasionally their exclusively Quartz correspondents. It was below anyone's stratagem, and even their pleasure, to even bring up the idea of having it sent in through the mail; that would spell catastrophe before the package even hit Baltimore. It would have to be more clandestine, whatever it was. Steven inquired about potentially securing a small airplane, but Jasper was hesitant; any air vehicles other than those made and implemented by the Gems were repurposed from the humans, and there wasn’t any way she could guarantee they didn’t have some sort of sabotage. And with the fact that there was a war going on in the United States, even a civil one, would mean that air traffic would be monitored tooth and nail. Surprisingly, despite the fact that there was more traffic, it would in fact be safer using some sort of land vehicle if a warp pad wasn’t an option in the location they were in. Steven hesitated this time. He knew that should he attempt to use the warp pad, it would provide him and anyone else who would potentially take the poison over almost instantaneous transportation into the war zone. This obviously being unsafe aside, getting to the warp pad would mean them having to fight their way through mobs of humans in order to get there, and in that mob, the poison could easily be spilled, causing catastrophe regardless of species or intent. Jasper then took to Steven’s will like gas to fire, and quickly laid out plans for the cars that would be provided to him and anyone else who may go.   
For the first time, Steven saw what he could have sworn was pride in Jasper's face in another Gem, and she only revealed at the end of the third week that Amethyst had been promoted to Lieutenant.   
Steven put down the proposed map with the car checkpoints. He did everything he could to refrain himself from jumping for joy, or even giddily telling Connie or Garnet or Pearl about this, knowing that if he succumbed to his own excitement, he would hate himself. Why would he be excited about one of his closest friends being thrown into the brink of danger, even if she’d evidently shown herself to be more than competent in it? And what kind of person was he for even internally celebrating this? He stopped, thought of the amount of bullets that were barely missing her, and his question shifted to what kind of person Jasper was to celebrate this. Because of this, he made it a point to stick almost religiously to his family for the next few weeks.   
Monday, he thought to visit Lapis as soon as he was awake- last night was distressing enough with the war footage for her to even consider packing her bags for Hagerstown just as Peridot did. Surprisingly, as Steven came in the door, he noticed her holding her composure even better than he did that night after approximately the same time after he watched the footage. Still, he saw how hard she clamped the objects that she did in order to get herself to the door and greet Steven, and put a hand on her shoulder.   
She didn’t cry. Steven could barely hold back his pride that she didn’t cry, when meanwhile he was practically on the little gray void straddling between deep sadness and physical tears; this Lapis knew all too well. Yet through it, Steven could also not keep himself from taking notice of the cut on her finger, and the cracked picture frame behind her of footage of what looked to be a green mass- immediately, Steven knew not to pry.   
“I was scared when you rang the doorbell” was Lapis’ manifestation of an explanation, which. for all intents and purposes, may have been true.   
Steven nodded, nodded twice as grim as ever, before shutting the door.   
“You...you know about the conversations I’ve had with Jasper, right?”  
Lapis nodded, although Steven noticed her gaze drifting back and forth like a pathetic wrapper to some souvenir or another drifting in the ocean that Lapis so cherished. “I- yes. In order to conduct a war, you have to-” she gripped the edge of a banister near her, shook slightly. “you have to contact the general, right?”  
Steven was, beyond all words, glad to realize that Lapis didn’t react with the slightest provocation when he touched her shoulder. “That’s right, there you go. And...her and I have been discussing something. The- the areas to a plan.”  
Lapis raised an eyebrow, although no one could hide the fact that she still fiddled with the banister. “How complicated are we talking about here?”  
“It’ll only take an hour to talk about it.”  
The plan had been fleshed out far beyond his at least direct contact with Jasper; she had at least detected his aggression, or at least his distance from her, and resorted to sending the information remotely except in the case of emergency questions. In regards to the total distance from Maryland to Nevada, it was about a distance of 2,500 miles, which translated to a journey of nearly two days assuming no hotels were utilized and there was at least one able and willing person to drive by night. Jasper and Steven had to struggle with their various conflicts of interests, her wanting to ensure he had a new method of transportation every hour, and her assuring her she was acting on nothing but overzealousness, although he didn’t fail to count the chills that ran up his spine each time any of the Gems continued to assign their continued role to him as a servant of the Diamond he was. So a vehicle would be provided in every other state, as opposed to every state. One Gem would need to provide defense; assuming the could do this competently, with Jasper taking over as soon as they crossed the border from Utah to Nevada, the journey should go entirely smoothly. Gene and OJ had already elected to take the poison with them, claiming that should the poison leak or rupture, as long as none of it immediately landed on them, their bodies would be able to eliminate the waste without any further side effects. Steven had agreed, but reaffirmed that no other humans were permitted to go with them, and only one Gem would go with them in order to provide defense.  
They had attempted to hire a Gem from the gem sect, but none had replied. Amethyst, virtually from Nevada itself, had suggested the possibility of hiring a Gem from outside the sect, for that matter, but Steven rejected the idea, fearing that the Gem would have too high of a probability of sabotaging the whole of operations- there had been more than rumors circulating of Gems that in fact supported the humans for no reason other than them wanting self-preservation and them wanting to be, according to them, “the last one standing at the end of this conflict”. Then, there was Homeworld, but everyone was more than aware of how tragically gridlocked it was. So none was available except someone living in the Crystal Gem sect.   
Lapis had a premonition that it would be her, but thought it best to see how everyone else could be eliminated. Poor Garnet and Bismuth were too busy constantly rebuilding the areas of Little Homeworld that were damaged by protests- current estimates held that around three percent of the buildings were being either partially or completely destroyed. Amethyst, obviously, was out in the Army. And there were still questions circulating as to whether or not Pearl was in a condition to undergo a trip across the country lasting nearly two days, with the possibility of a belligerent appearing at any time, and doing so alone, and only with Gene and OJ. There were questions of Greg coming with her, but he had already been affected by the poison, and nobody thought it was beneficial on anyone’s part for him to come. And Peridot was furiously researching the poison, although she refused to operate under the pretense that she was technically working under anyone. This left Lapis to accompany the both of them. Lastly, Steven reiterated that neither Gene or OJ had any self-defense training, any combat experience, or any training on how to use any sort of weapon, human or Gem.   
She was quiet. She stared at him, then at the carpet, then made little circles in it that ended in near-perfection, which caused her to rub them out of the rug.   
“How do I learn how to drive?”  
‘What?”  
She looked at him with the utmost seriousness, her body having stopped shaking long ago, her legs jerking slightly now and growing restless. Her wings had slowly crept out of her back the longer and longer Steven spoke, and doubly so the more and more evidence Steven provided towards her being Greg and OJ’s chaperone.   
“How do I learn how to drive?”  
Steven took a few seconds to answer, it being interrupted by somewhat deep laughter. “No, no, that’ll be taken care of. Gene is- what, he’s eighteen now? He can drive.”   
“Yes, but...not for that long and that harsh of a journey…” she mused.   
Steven paused. She was right; Gene having to find a place to rest meaning they would have to pore whatever city they’d happened to stop in for an empty parking lot at best and a hotel at worst, which meant that they’d be financially under more scrutiny than Steven would’ve liked for this mission. And even if they could find a safe place to rest, doing so would expand the journey by another day and, by how volatile the conflict was in Nevada, a human may have already killed Amethyst or Jasper or Eyeball or someone else of military importance.   
“Alright,” Steven said.   
He stood up.   
God, she was so much braver than when he’d met her. So much braver.   
“So, these are called car keys. What you do is push this button to unlock the car key doors, and when they’re unlocked…”  
________  
And soon, it was the Fourth of July. In other words, if any of the planning anyone else other than Steven had done in those weeks were evident, it was hel. The humans, or at least the ones more likely to carry more graphic signs to the Gem sect, viewed the holiday as nothing more than a case of the supremacy of the American human military, using the opportunity to unleash their own civilian firearms on the sect. For this, everyone pooled together their energy to help Garnet and Bismuth in building further fortifications for the sect and passing the message for the Gems to keep themselves indoors, as well as Pearl and Garnet giving their own strategic insights based on their interactions with Rose before.   
Steven couldn’t help but shake his head, shake his head repeatedly and with more dismay each and every time, when the memories came flooding back of his childhood and the Fourth of July, although it wasn’t celebrated with nearly as much grandeur or nostalgia as someone living further inland in Maryland. He remembered that at least he was safe, and in his childhood home with his family, and at least that the Gems dearest to him were safe enough to walk in public without so much as anything more than a few curse-laden sentences from one of the more extremist humans there.   
Now, things were all too different. But, Steven considered, this was nothing compared to what was ensuing in the front, right?  
________  
Amethyst was safe from the direct front and from any direct strategy, at least as safe as a second lieutenant like her could be. Still, however, she was near the stalemate line, even if she was twenty miles away. That was her first thought as she rose, more naked than she was when she emerged from the ground, cursing to herself quietly after realizing Aaron Martin had left her his used condom as a goodbye present. But still smiling. She may keep it for later.   
She’d met him, if it could be called that, early on in the battle for Portland, Oregon back in the fall of 2022. It had been one of the most brutal points in the entire history of the war thus far; fifty thousand Gems had been sent into battle, and thirty thousand Gems had staggered back out. After an entire day of stress, her being socially rejected by Jasper and unable to contact anyone back home, and at least three other fellow Gems rejecting the favor she asked for afterwards, she ventured out and looked for someone who’d accept it. Aaron Martin, a member of the human forces, met her, cocked his rifle, saw the look on her face and the sweetly demonic smile that came with it, heard the impassioned, slight growls coming from her mouth, saw the intentional dip in her cleavage, put the rifle down, took her by the hand, went into a trailer with her, and got the deed done. Both parties had known entirely each other’s role. They were both lieutenants, a line from Aaron in the middle of one night or another that sent Amethyst writhing with further passion after she evidently didn’t notice the distinct mark on his uniform’s shoulders. .   
Such had been the relationship for the past months, although becoming familiar with each other’s bodies to that extent lead to a more emotional connection, something at least Amethyst found somewhat disconcerting. Over the past months, they’d learned more about each other. After each night, they’d spend an hour wrapped in bedsheets, talking, or, in some instances, meeting fully-clothed and simply having a conversation with neither army knowing. While Aaron was marvelled at Amethyst’s spontaneous, creative, sensitive nature all simultaneously, she was wooed by Aaron’s calculating yet warm demeanor that reminded her enough of Peridot to shudder each time their nights together were over, but was distant enough from Peridot for their nights to begin. While Amethyst was relentlessly progressive, he stood more by Donald Trump, which didn’t anger Amethyst in the slightest despite him being commander-in-chief of the human forces.   
Aaron’s interests were entirely distant from science, preferring to learn more foreign languages, although he of course first used it to cajole Amethyst into releasing a little more of untapped passion. Other than Spanish, he’d learned a little Gem, some Vietnamese from when his father served in the Vietnam War, and a few words of Irish from his mother’s side. In addition, he loved composing poetry, although that wasn’t as pervasive as his love of gardening. Still, as he attempted to keep from Amethyst, he had a deep desire to have children with his wife, as he was twenty-three and was barely in the position of an officer.  
That didn’t mean that Amethyst kept herself from having thoughts of Peridot, although she didn’t quite know whether to categorize them as intrusive or as just a consequence of being in another man’s bed. She shook those thoughts off as they berated her, then watched from the proverbial benches as new thoughts raced in of what she’d shared with Aaron that night. Surely, though, that information was merited, right? They’d known each other for a few months now, had talked in-depth about their interests, and occasionally, even the status of whatever relationship they had managed to pique out of each other in the course of those months. Surely, no one, save for Jasper and Pearl, would have questioned her decision, would they? And besides, it was her decision. It was her decision to tell him about exactly where in Maryland she lived- “a nice little beach town called Beach City, ‘tho it beats me about how they decided to name it a city instead of a town”- and that she’d had a female interest before she’d been deployed, although that was mainly to test Aaron’s openness to the whole endeavor. And it was her decision to let herself be told by him that she was oversharing, yet her decision to succumb to the nibbling he’d done on her ear before whispering into it that he didn’t mind.   
Her last thought was that she’d had this coming for awhile. All of her friends, all of her interests, male and female, back in Beach City, were practically scrying everything she did now. Still, none of them had connected back to her for more than a few weeks, although there were a few exceptions should she stage a party or two which were, according to Pearl, “in the middle of the Gem sect being in all this turmoil; we’re practically in a warzone now!”. It had only been a few months, but a few months was enough to practically fill her enough to where she planned on denying any of the food offered in the DFAC.   
Disgusted, more at herself than at the condom, she threw it away. She put her clothes on, tucked her hair back, and walked out of the trailer door.


	41. Happy Holidays! (Taking Another Hiatus, Whaddayaknow)

First of all, I’d like to issue an apology. Due to my long and complicated ancestry, the holidays I will be celebrating from approximately now to January 6th will be equally as long and complicated.   
Never to fear- I am making progress on this, although I’m keeping this behind the scenes for now due to the fact that this chapter isn’t finished. That being said, though, I did finish my original work! Let me know if you guys want copies, as this site isn’t at all made for original works, and I wouldn’t know how and why to post it otherwise.   
Happy holidays, and may 2021 not be as hellish as 2020, although it will have to work even harder than I do in order to obtain that title.


	42. Unfortunately, Another Delay.

I recently pursued another writing project, this time writing the script of a film related to Steven Universe. Let me know if you want to see it.   
Also, I got diagnosed with COVID, and am going through a mental health crisis at the moment.   
Because of all this, I'll be taking some time off, and I should be back on February 7th.   
Again, sorry for the delay.


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